Are there any known ways to undo the compression? Assuming no clipping, the process should be reversible, right?
Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
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Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#22The fix is to disqualify album of the year eligibility for anything showing evidence of severe clipping. The industry would rapidly shape itself up.
And who, exactly, would approve that misguided proposal?
I suspect you’re not involved in contemporary record making. Like it or not, clipping is a technique and a color that producers, mixers, and mastering engineers all choose to impart for aesthetic and technical reasons. It has it’s uses.
If your proposal were passed all that would be left for consideration would be a handful lame DSD jazz records from those hi-fi enthusiasts who are disconnected from the reality around how most records are made these days.
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#23Are there any known ways to undo the compression? Assuming no clipping, the process should be reversible, right?
you can use an expander or something more advanced like Ozone 12's Unlimiter. you still lose signal when you compress even if you're not clipping so it won't be perfect
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#24Are there any known ways to undo the compression? Assuming no clipping, the process should be reversible, right?
Short answer, no not really. It won’t ever be as good as a proper uncompressed mastering
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#25The fix is to disqualify album of the year eligibility for anything showing evidence of severe clipping. The industry would rapidly shape itself up.
And who, exactly, would approve that misguided proposal? I suspect you’re not involved in contemporary record making. Like it or not, clipping is a technique and a color that producers, mixers, and mastering engineers all choose to impart for aesthetic and technical reasons. It has it’s uses. If your proposal were passed all that would be left for consideration would be a handful lame DSD jazz records from those hi-f…
RIAA is a standards body.
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#26Are there any known ways to undo the compression? Assuming no clipping, the process should be reversible, right?
No, you need the original mix to remaster it yourself.
If you just amplify the whole track until its max amplitude reaches the medium's maximum, yes you could undo that.
But the loudness war aims to make the whole track even louder than that, by quietening those max peaks so they don't clip, then that gives you room to amplify the rest of the track even further. The dynamic range of the recording is permanently reduced.
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#27The main reason vinyl often sounds better is because it is better mastered, so this is concerning.
That's just not true and vinyl doesn't sound better by any measure.
It’s completely true, when the vinyl has a different mastering. It can be a completely different version. It’s not because it’s vinyl
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#28I don't understand why they still release super compressed and loud masterings when most of the modern headphones are so good you don't really need to master for the old cheap stereo sets. And isn't headphones with Spotify the most common medium for music nowadays?
Most headphones people actually use are crap. Yes you can buy studio monitors from sony. That isn't what people are listening to. They are using airpods which sound like earpods have always sounded: crap, absent lows, terrible separation. So you compress the hell out of the audio and make it loud so you can actually hear something with those headphones.
What AirPods are you talking about? The wired AirPods that sound pretty bad have been overtaken by wireless Bluetooth AirPods for many years now. The AirPod Pro 2 sound quality is a world of difference from the wired earbud style AirPods. In fact, most of the most popular TWS Bluetooth Earbuds have fantastic sound quality. The main issue with them is that they have a V shaped tuning, with various levels of bad. However, Apple and Samsung tunings are quite decent.
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#29The main reason vinyl often sounds better is because it is better mastered, so this is concerning.
I'd say "rarely" instead of "often" though it depends on the genre I guess. There are also a lot of genres that can never sound as good on vinyl simply due to the lack of dynamic range/silence; mostly classical and electronic.
Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
#30I've been avoidant of most modern vinyl, I don't want to get a vinyl pressing of something that was digitally remastered. What's the point?