The Loudness War - a different opinion

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by TheNoize

That is why there is a follow-up article in the making, to finally defend the engineers side the right way!

Jonathan, again with all due respect engineers have been defending themselves quite well for years now. There really is no need for another article on this anymore than a need for Rocky VII. Loudness war debates have reached the level of the debates on "which is better analog or digital". There are SO many other issues that we should be addressing like the degradation of audio due to the "dumming down" of audio production, mainstream distribution via lossy codecs, the decline of CD, etc. Stay with fresh content if you want subscribers especially from this forum, let's not rehash articles on beating dead equestrians, enough people have gotten mileage from this issue.

[TheNoize]

Originally Posted by masteringhouse

Jonathan, again with all due respect engineers have been defending themselves quite well for years now. There really is no need for another article on this anymore than a need for Rocky VII. Loudness war debates have reached the level of the debates on "which is better analog or digital". There are SO many other issues that we should be addressing like the degradation of audio due to the "dumming down" of audio production, mainstream distribution via lossy codecs, the decline of CD, etc. Stay with fresh content if you want subscribers especially from this forum, let's not rehash articles on beating dead equestrians, enough people have gotten mileage from this issue.

Great!
:)

[StarfishMusic]

I would like to see a movement in the other direction. A new audiophile movement where the end product is 24 bit and at least 88.2 sample rate. Where the end of chain limiting is just the right amount to make the song sound it's best. Where the quality is high and the quality of the listener is high. ahhh but I'm sure it's the standard engineer dream.

It's no secret, I think we all want this. but let me ask why the hell hasn't it happened? Can't most any new computer sound card play back files like that? They'd just have to auto-detect the resolution instead of be manually switched and even if the listener did have to manually switch it. Does the end listener just not care? and it's not like we can't send around files like that on the internet. It's just takes a little longer. Anyone watched the comcast slowskies commercial?..... the internet is so fast now people send me 24bit stereo tracks in under 2 minutes!!! Would people not wait 15 minutes for a album download of superior sound quality? I think the bigger artists should just make higher res files available free with the lower res ones to get it started. Yes I know some are starting to do that. but damnit why does 16/44 even exist anymore? we've been recording 24 bit almost ten years. It's rediculous. The loudness wars come from this same mentality of the listener just doesn't or can't hear the difference. Why then do some audiophiles buy speakers that cost more than a car? and yet they play a 44/16 or even an mp3 thru them.

ok, rant done.

[masteringhouse]

Yep!

[hackenslash]

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic

I would like to see a movement in the other direction. A new audiophile movement where the end product is 24 bit and at least 88.2 sample rate. Where the end of chain limiting is just the right amount to make the song sound it's best. Where the quality is high and the quality of the listener is high. ahhh but I'm sure it's the standard engineer dream.

It's no secret, I think we all want this. but let me ask why the hell hasn't it happened? Can't most any new computer sound card play back files like that? They'd just have to auto-detect the resolution instead of be manually switched and even if the listener did have to manually switch it. Does the end listener just not care? and it's not like we can't send around files like that on the internet. It's just takes a little longer. Anyone watched the comcast slowskies commercial?..... the internet is so fast now people send me 24bit stereo tracks in under 2 minutes!!! Would people not wait 15 minutes for a album download of superior sound quality? I think the bigger artists should just make higher res files available free with the lower res ones to get it started. Yes I know some are starting to do that. but damnit why does 16/44 even exist anymore? we've been recording 24 bit almost ten years. It's rediculous. The loudness wars come from this same mentality of the listener just doesn't or can't hear the difference. Why then do some audiophiles buy speakers that cost more than a car? and yet they play a 44/16 or even an mp3 thru them.

ok, rant done.

Can't think of a good reason for an 88.2 sample rate at the listener's end. Perhaps somebody could propose one?

[mikeroephonics]

When I master songs for my clients, I really just go with my gut with respect to how loud I think it should be. I'm very picky about overall loudness, and I can tell almost immediately if it is too loud (or quiet).

After doing this for over 4 years, I have yet to have a client tell me "Make it LOUDER!". To me, getting a loud sound is far more than just buss compression and a limiter. It's largely due to proper use of EQ. Get a good, balanced sound first with an EQ, then beef it up with tasteful compression and a limiter if needed. I usually use a look-ahead peak limiter to catch stray peaks, not to butcher the track for sheer volume.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic

I would like to see a movement in the other direction. A new audiophile movement where the end product is 24 bit and at least 88.2 sample rate. Where the end of chain limiting is just the right amount to make the song sound it's best. Where the quality is high and the quality of the listener is high. ahhh but I'm sure it's the standard engineer dream.

It's no secret, I think we all want this. but let me ask why the hell hasn't it happened? Can't most any new computer sound card play back files like that? They'd just have to auto-detect the resolution instead of be manually switched and even if the listener did have to manually switch it. Does the end listener just not care? and it's not like we can't send around files like that on the Internet. It's just takes a little longer. Anyone watched the comcast slowskies commercial?..... the Internet is so fast now people send me 24bit stereo tracks in under 2 minutes!!! Would people not wait 15 minutes for a album download of superior sound quality? I think the bigger artists should just make higher res files available free with the lower res ones to get it started. Yes I know some are starting to do that. but damnit why does 16/44 even exist anymore? we've been recording 24 bit almost ten years. It's ridiculous. The loudness wars come from this same mentality of the listener just doesn't or can't hear the difference. Why then do some audiophiles buy speakers that cost more than a car? and yet they play a 44/16 or even an MP3 thru them.

ok, rant done.

A lot of people across the US still have dial up Internet . I read one article recently that said about 22% still are using dial-up. I know that I live in a small town and the best I can do with a cable modem is about 750K which means that a 600 MB file takes over an hour to download. We also have a very artificial 2 gig download limit from our ISP and after that you have to pay by the MB. So even though you have a fast Internet connection a vast majority of people still are working with less than "state of the art Internet" but you are correct that in a few years this will not be the norm and high speed Internet will be available to most people if they want it and can afford it.

Most people today want portable music. Music that they can take into their cars and with them while walking to class and most of this is on MP3s or CDs. I was recently in a big box merchant and I simple could not believe the amount of space devoted to MP3 playback equipment. Everything from IPODS to big ticket surround systems that have a place to plug in your MP3 player. I think the hand writing is on the wall and MP3s have become the "standard" playback medium.

I was at a high end stereo shop recently. Even some of their really high end equipment has a place to plug in an MP3 player and we are talking systems that start at $15,000 and go WAY up from there.

There are some audiophiles and some golden eared people that would pay for the higher sampling and bit rates but I think the whole industry has been dumbed down to thinking in the MP3 world and are not concerning themselves in the least with anything of higher quality. Maybe in the future this will be different. Musical taste have a way of swinging like a pendulum between content and technology and right now it all seems to be content driven.

Best of luck on your idea and I personally think it would be a great thing to have available but I wonder seriously how much it would be used????

[masteringhouse]

Convenience and price usually plays a larger role in consumer purchases that quality, especially among teens. However it's still nice to have a choice. While it's convenient and cheaper to watch a movie on a portable DVD player or video Ipod, many still want to see movies on the large screen. Having mp3 as the only choice for a new artist would be a very sad state of affairs. A lot of great technology is being wasted.

I don't know of any studies offhand, but it seems that people are more stimulated visually that aurally. Why does high definition video seem to be a big seller while SACD and DVD-A have little impact?

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by masteringhouse

I don't know of any studies offhand, but it seems that people are more stimulated visually that aurally. Why does high definition video seem to be a big seller while SACD and DVD-A have little impact?

I believe that is because hearing is (unless trained) handled mostly by the subconscious. We all know that hearing provides a hell of a lot of information, but average Joe's brain handles it all mostly in the background, whereas with vision, one is always aware of the focal point in the field of vision.

Those who have experience with live sound, especially with performances that are equally visual as well as auditorial, will be aware of the phenomenon that the audience will notice and praise good lighting or projection, whereas often, the best reaction you will get regarding sound is that noone noticed anything bad. They might say "the music was great". But hardly anyone, only those interested in the matter, will focus on sound itself.
The same is true for sound to picture. Visual effects are noticed much more often than sound effects. Perfect sound in that regards usually means that "everything sounds like it should". "I didn't notice anything unusual" may mean that the sound designers did a fantastic job.

Maybe this is because humans haven't relied on hearing as much as vision for survival for a long time. I suspect that our ancestors hunting in the woods had better training in homing in on single sounds, in focusing on specific auditorial information.
Or it may be because hearing is, in a sense, more developed, better integrated with our mind. We get only relevant information and we get it already translated to a meaningful message (instead of "there's a single note sound, coming from behind me with fast rising amplitude" we think "CAR HORN - JUMP TO THE LEFT!!!).
Or maybe hearing is such a simple, basic function which just doesn't need as much attention and is handled in the background, simply because it can be, whereas vision is too complex for that.

Another reason why it's easier to sell HDTV than HDAudio may be that picture delivery mechanisms are, in my opinion, a lot more rudimentary, thus there are bigger improvements to be made. After all, we still watch our moving pictures in a little square box, we're not even trying to create an illusion of reality here.

Either way, all this is of course shockingly unscientific, just some thoughts that come to mind. The bottom line is it's much easier to make average Joe aware of the "crisp picture quality" than the "lack of artifacts in the playback of a recording" because he never noticed those artifacts before. His brain did notice them and filtered them out quite successfully, but that is not something Joe is aware of.

[StarfishMusic]

Originally Posted by hackenslash

Can't think of a good reason for an 88.2 sample rate at the listener's end. Perhaps somebody could propose one?

I said at least 88.2 because that's really the first common higher sample rate that people use to get higher quality. 48k is only only marginally different than the standard 44k. of course 96k or higher produces higher fidelity results too.

If your asking how: for one it's about the highest frequencies reproduced by the recording. 44k samlple rate captures up to 22k audio but 88.2 captures 44k audio. but the more important thing to me is It gets that digital aliasing out of the way. It's just the nature of digital recording that the freuencies at the top of the captured frequency range "alias" meaning the get all crunchy and must have a filter that smears them. When you use a higher sample rate gets all this (arguably) above the range of human hearing. 192k sampling rate drives this concept even further although is probably overkill. It does however allow for inaudible high frequencies that are felt more than heard and or affect lower ones. 192k is way debatable i believe but 88.2 and up is not as far as playback is concerned.

about the portability arguement: ipods and such could easily be made to play back 24 bit high sample rate files they would just hold less of them. Do you really need 4000 songs in your ipod all the time? how about 2000 low quality and 30 super high quality. you can always easily change them from the hard drive in your computer.

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

A lot of people across the US still have dial up Internet...

There is wireless broadband which, based on what I saw a friend's system do, is remarkably good. Still I think we probably won't be seeing much further expansion of cable and DSL.

I also don't buy the idea that everything will move to downloads. The bar is just much higher for the quality of music, audio and graphics if you expect people to want to buy a disk. Mo Ostin figured that out at Verve in the late 1960s but today's sorcerers' apprentices have forgotten what it takes to sell albums rather than singles.

[Alécio Costa]

You guys need to learn the "6L2" technique. There was a video some time ago on the web. :)


After many years junior mastering just with plug-ins,I had the opportuniy to recently build and start improving a high-end analog chain ( Crane-Pendulum-etc).
Ahtough 99,9999% of my clientes are always happy with the final results, I hear 2 concerns of them occasionally:

a) "Willl it be similar to US Sterling Sound standards"?
b) "I guess I have heard my mix engineer reference discs so manytimes, that t now seems things are not that loud."

The infamous 6L2 technique, that was once spread at youtube was basically 6 L2plug-ins providing 2db reduction on each instance!!!!

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I also don't buy the idea that everything will move to downloads. The bar is just much higher for the quality of music, audio and graphics if you expect people to want to buy a disk. Mo Ostin figured that out at Verve in the late 1960s but today's sorcerers' apprentices have forgotten what it takes to sell albums rather than singles.

February 2008:

When will iTunes replace Wal-Mart as No. 1 music retailer? | Tech news blog - CNET News

April 2008:

Apple's iTunes beats Wal-Mart to become top U.S. music store - Machinist - Salon.com

[masteringhouse]

Well said Joe, my concern is that we don't take steps backward in quality simply for the sake of convenience. Though I guess some would argue that the same happened when we went from vinyl to CD.

[Bob Olhsson]

Frankly Wal-Mart is no loss. Small, genre-specific stores have always been where the action was. Wal-Mart and Target dropping out creates a huge opportunity for much more music and music-fan friendly stores.

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Frankly Wal-Mart is no loss. Small, genre-specific stores have always been where the action was. Wal-Mart and Target dropping out creates a huge opportunity for much more music and music-fan friendly stores.

I wish this were true, but I'm not hearing this from a friend who owns one. There is always the opportunity to buy CDs online, but downloads are still beating these types of sales too from the info I've seen. One report that I read said that CDs will essentially be replaced by downloads around 2011. Given the current pace I would bet sooner. Around here "record stores" are closing or trying to hang on by selling download cards or have added other merch along with music CDs.

Bob, I'll be coming to Nashville in about a week for a CD release. It will be an interesting "culture shock" for me as I've never been yet. I'll be looking for those shops!

Best,
Tom

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by masteringhouse

...One report that I read said that CDs will essentially be replaced by downloads around 2011...

All of the reports I've seen have originated from the crowd that invests in internet and tech stocks and stand to profit from that perception.

Yes we're in a time of massive transition and small stores have been getting clobbered for the past ten years. However as the big stores move on from selling music, a real opportunity is being created. What IS dead is selling the kinds of CDs that have become common over the past ten years however there's a whole world of other possibilities for packaged recordings.

[Jerry Tubb]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Frankly Wal-Mart is no loss. Small, genre-specific stores have always been where the action was. Wal-Mart and Target dropping out creates a huge opportunity for much more music and music-fan friendly stores.

Two of my favorites record stores, both the real deal:

Waterloo Records & Video - Online CD Store and Texas Music Catalog

Ernest Tubb Record Shops

JT

[ripper]

Originally Posted by alyricalmind

No, I had to in order to increase my sales. In economics businesses don't do something because they choose to, they have to follow demand in order to be more successful.

so fail in order to suceed?

ohhhhhhhh-kaaaaaaaaaaay

[hackenslash]

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic

I said at least 88.2 because that's really the first common higher sample rate that people use to get higher quality. 48k is only only marginally different than the standard 44k. of course 96k or higher produces higher fidelity results too.

If your asking how: for one it's about the highest frequencies reproduced by the recording. 44k samlple rate captures up to 22k audio but 88.2 captures 44k audio. but the more important thing to me is It gets that digital aliasing out of the way. It's just the nature of digital recording that the freuencies at the top of the captured frequency range "alias" meaning the get all crunchy and must have a filter that smears them. When you use a higher sample rate gets all this (arguably) above the range of human hearing. 192k sampling rate drives this concept even further although is probably overkill. It does however allow for inaudible high frequencies that are felt more than heard and or affect lower ones. 192k is way debatable i believe but 88.2 and up is not as far as playback is concerned.

about the portability arguement: ipods and such could easily be made to play back 24 bit high sample rate files they would just hold less of them. Do you really need 4000 songs in your ipod all the time? how about 2000 low quality and 30 super high quality. you can always easily change them from the hard drive in your computer.

But with reasonably efficient Nyquist filters all aliasing can be taken care of during mastering, making it a moot point for the end user, and since the upper limit of human hearing can't hear anywhere near 44.1 KHz, 88.2 seems overkill on an end-user playback device. Somewhere in the 60s, maybe, would be better. I can see why you chose 88.2, at least, as it is a common sample rate. For the end user, 44.1 is a reasonable compromise, as there aren't many people who can hear up into the 20s, so there aren't really any gains in the real world.

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

All of the reports I've seen have originated from the crowd that invests in internet and tech stocks and stand to profit from that perception.

Yes we're in a time of massive transition and small stores have been getting clobbered for the past ten years. However as the big stores move on from selling music, a real opportunity is being created. What IS dead is selling the kinds of CDs that have become common over the past ten years however there's a whole world of other possibilities for packaged recordings.

I would love it if this were the case. I remember when growing up there was a record shop where they gave guitar lessons, sold gear, and where I got to look, smell, and feel the inital releases of some band that my parents didn't like called "The Beatles". There were also people there that understood your tastes and would make some good suggestions on new music to check out. If you didn't know the name of a song you could hum a few bars or say part of the lyric and they would know. Sure it was a bit more work to get there, but once you did it was worth it.

Computer monitors and Ipods smell funny and feel the same from album to album.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Around this area we were very lucky in that there were a number of small "mom and pop" record stores. They were full of hard to find CDs and the staff was very knowledgeable and friendly. They would even recommend new CDs based on what you had been buying in the past. Then Borders came in. They dropped their prices so low that the "mom and pop" stores could not compete. They also had an in store place where you could eat and you could browse the latest books while you were there. With in a year of Borders coming in almost all the "mom and pop" record stores closed up. Not too much after that the chain music stores closed up shop. It was not even a week after the last "mom and pop" store closed up Borders added about three to four dollars to all of their CD prices. Borders had enough money to sell their CDs at cost until they closed down all their competition and then raised them to MORE than the "mom and pop" stores were charging.

Now if you go to Borders the CD area looks like a vast wasteland and the CD bins are being used to house YOGA and Pilate's equipment for sale. The DVD area is growing and is basically taking over the whole CD area. The staff at the Borders store locally is NOT knowledgeable and if it is not really popular music have NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

One of my favorite local record stores was My Generation. They had a very knowledgeable staff and would special order CDs for you. They also had a lot of CDs that you could not find anywhere else including CDs of local bands. The guy who owned the store was NOT a good businessman but one heck of a good source of knowledge about the recording industry and about particular CDs and their availability. He lasted for a couple of years AB (after Borders) and then just could not compete any more and went under. It was a sad day when they closed their doors.

[kjg]

Originally Posted by hackenslash

But with reasonably efficient Nyquist filters all aliasing can be taken care of during mastering, making it a moot point for the end user, and since the upper limit of human hearing can't hear anywhere near 44.1 KHz, 88.2 seems overkill on an end-user playback device. Somewhere in the 60s, maybe, would be better. I can see why you chose 88.2, at least, as it is a common sample rate. For the end user, 44.1 is a reasonable compromise, as there aren't many people who can hear up into the 20s, so there aren't really any gains in the real world.

+1

64k/24b would be great and pretty much enough for end-user delivery formats. Even 48k allows for less steep aa/reconstruction filtering and results in more open/natural top end. There is no reason what so ever to deliver 30k audio - I guess the non-audiophools agree on that - and the benefits of 24 bit are common wisdom by now.
Dan Lavry's article on higher sample rates also suggest 60k-ish as an optimum, and since 32k is a somewhat standard lo-fi samplerate any way... How hard can it be to have converters and audio apps run at double that rate?

Using a lossless, open source encoder such as flac would result in substantial data reduction which makes it even more viable.

I'm all for flac encoded 64/24 as the new hi-fi standard, with 48/16 as the compromise for situations where storage/bandwidth is at a premium. For lo-fi applications the 48/16 bit data could still be ogg/mp3 encoded.

[Straight]

Originally Posted by alyricalmind

I think in pop / urban music, there's really no way around it. If every major album is a certain volume and some underground artist tries to break the trend by having better dynamics but less volume... guess what... most people will not care about the dynamics and will immediately say something to the sort that "the song doesn't sound professional". I'm mainly a producer and I've noticed that when I started clipping my audio to match the levels of the other producers on Soundclick, people liked my music better. Eventually I had to "remaster" all the tracks for the internet.

very very true

This trend's end'll be start in the mainstream. If I"d start making quiter, more dynamic hip hop songs, everybody'd think I'm living in 89, and don't see what the big deal is.

[defjamm]

Originally Posted by Straight

very very true

This trend's end'll be start in the mainstream. If I"d start making quiter, more dynamic hip hop songs, everybody'd think I'm living in 89, and don't see what the big deal is.

it didn't stop kanye's graduation to sell millions or lil wayne's lollipop to be a hit.

[hackenslash]

Originally Posted by kjg

+1

64k/24b would be great and pretty much enough for end-user delivery formats. Even 48k allows for less steep aa/reconstruction filtering and results in more open/natural top end. There is no reason what so ever to deliver 30k audio - I guess the non-audiophools agree on that - and the benefits of 24 bit are common wisdom by now.
Dan Lavry's article on higher sample rates also suggest 60k-ish as an optimum, and since 32k is a somewhat standard lo-fi samplerate any way... How hard can it be to have converters and audio apps run at double that rate?

Using a lossless, open source encoder such as flac would result in substantial data reduction which makes it even more viable.

I'm all for flac encoded 64/24 as the new hi-fi standard, with 48/16 as the compromise for situations where storage/bandwidth is at a premium. For lo-fi applications the 48/16 bit data could still be ogg/mp3 encoded.

While I agree with your first premise, I also can't see the need for a 24 bit delivery system. What are we talking about? Footroom? In a well-mastered production, the noise floor should also be largely moot. 64/16 would be about right, methinks.

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by hackenslash

While I agree with your first premise, I also can't see the need for a 24 bit delivery system. What are we talking about? Footroom? In a well-mastered production, the noise floor should also be largely moot. 64/16 would be about right, methinks.

If you want to cover all variables, 20 bits would do it for a delivery channel. That covers threshold of hearing to threshold of pain. You need a hell of a system to reproduce it, of course, but that way nobody can say you don't have your bases covered!

By the way, this has become a different subject if I'm not mistaken.

[Susceptor]

Double post, please delete.

[Susceptor]

Froom my point of view there are 3 main factors that produced this "loudness war":

First of all, as we all know it was that hype around the fact that loud sells better. It is true to some extent; e.g. you'll most likely like a version which is 0.5 - 1.5 dB louder due to the fact that it sounds more exciting and that the difference in sound volume isn't that much for your average Joe. This used to work to some degree, but when you can't get more "loud" on the record, the whole "loudness sells" is just bollocks.

Second of all, there was no standard to what RMS levels should be. If this existed, there would be no problem, but since there's a jungle out there, anyone can try what ever they want to, even if it's just dumb and sounds crappy.

Third of all, some artist like it that way. For example, in the american metal scene (e.g. metalcore, deathcore, whatevercore they come up with next) the whole overcompressed/overlimited sound is a characteristic of the genre. They WANT the kick drums to sund like pillows being hit instead of drums. The limiter is seen more like an effect (in the sens of chorus) to shape the sound. This is also true for the IDM/breakcore genres (due to the fact that they mix and "pre master" themselves). Sadly, this was taken as a general purpose effect, but you can't use all of the effects on all genres. Just try to imagine having all tracks on a symphonic song with a distorted flanged echoed reverbed trancegated sound (someone might invent a new genre this way, but in my opinion it's just sheen stupidity).

The bad part in all of this is that it seems that nowadays the standard of RMS level seems to be "as loud as you can, brick wave preferably". Some music genres have an excellent dynamic range (I recently listened to some japanese taiko drummers CD) but some genres are defined by no dynamic whatsoever (I think that they're trying to make their music resemble their faces, rugged and expresionless ). What really bugs me is the fact that genres that used to have dynamics try to have this "fresh, modern sound" and focus less and less on creativity.

To make things even worse, the consumers simply forgot how to use the volume knob. They expect extremely loud music and if it doesn't sound as loud as the other things they listen to they will either find it a) unprofessional ("everybody's making it loud, why hasn't it changed in the last 20 years?") b) too soft (as if it were to hard to turn the volume up) or a comination of both.

The only viable solution I see (which existed for quite some time) is ReplayGain. Since the majority of listeners use mp3, they could easily use the RG gain tag and most of the level problems would be solved. It's not that hard for the most popular players to use RG (some of them have), to support it and to automatically calculate RG before playing the damn thing (unless a tag is present). Also, it's easy to implement it in modern players via firmware (at least into some players) so people won't have to buy new stuff.

In the meantime, AES/EBU could try to "force" and set the standard RMS levels to -14 dbFS (chosen by the fact that this is the VU meter setting), with exceptions to other levels given by the dynamic requirment of the song, but to have a maximum RMS peak at -14 dbFS(or let's say -12). Most VST should use the K system (or have an option for it) when it comes to levels. In the end we would have the same result, some extreme genres would still have a brick song, but only x db softer, but artists would have the option to be dynamic without worrying about the volume. We still would have some ****tards (as I read in a post in this thread) who pay to see "all those lights on", but their quantity would be negligibe.

PS: it's actually amusing that there is so much hype about the "analog" warmth, but people still try to get everything as loud as possible, destroying that warmth to some degree.

[Freq18Hz]

This whole volume war thing is incredibly retarded.

The only reason there has ever been a push to loudness, is to overcome noise introduced by lower quality amplifiers, when boosting volume.

The louder your source, the less the amp has to work. Period.

Lets just end this whole discussion right here, as most modern amps, have ample gain to make even softer tracks sound great.



-Freq