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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)

#121

Post by Dylan16807 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #117
NikolaNovak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematically that's absolutely true. Emotionally, it feels different. It's fascinating to see downright angry gut reactions! A few years ago my friend was selling his expensive camera on Kijiji. I asked him to sell it to me for slightly less as a friendly discount. He told me that's the same as just randomly one day giving me a wad of cash, so why would he do that?? I thought he's crazy and was a little bit offende…

Yes, strictly true, but friendship is worth it, no? Do you spend a couple of hours with a friend and then hand each other bills for the hours? Clearly there was a[n opportunity] cost to both of you, after all. Just spending time together without charging would be like randomly handing over a wad of cash ... >Buy for $x, have and not sell for $x, same mathematically. They're not the same. £20 item to buy, I have £100;…

If you're trying to make rent right now it makes a difference. In the long run it's looking at X income and comparing how much better/worse off you'd be with X-1 and X+1 income, and those two deltas are almost the same. The fluctuation in value of the object will make a bigger difference than the technicalities of buying versus selling.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#122

Post by breezybottom »

bigbuppo wrote: post #42
atoav wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mixing engineer: 1. Compressed sound can be an integral (wanted) part of different genre aesthetics. I personally love dynamic mixes, but if you let your customers A/B mixes they will often chose the more compressed/louder one. If your song sounds weak after another bands song, that is an issue. 2. For reasons of health/liability there are maximum levels on headphones and mobile playback devices. That means if m…

And just wait until they find out that compressor/limiters came about for reasons other than shaping the dynamics of music. If you're not slammed against the wall, your AM broadcast signal isn't going far.

Why the snark? Who expects high quality audio from AM radio?

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#123

Post by throw0101a »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #105
thaumasiotes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He thinks that way because it's the only correct way to think. Try raising the value of the record and see what you think about it.

Mathematically that's absolutely true. Emotionally, it feels different. It's fascinating to see downright angry gut reactions! A few years ago my friend was selling his expensive camera on Kijiji. I asked him to sell it to me for slightly less as a friendly discount. He told me that's the same as just randomly one day giving me a wad of cash, so why would he do that?? I thought he's crazy and was a little bit offende…

> Buy for $x, have and not sell for $x, same mathematically. But oh boy will people get instantly riled up emotionally :).

Price and value are not the same. The logic of your friend was basically putting a price on how "special" (or not) he saw your relationship versus some rando-buyer online.

That is why people (close to you) get riled up emotionally: they're being treated in a way no different than a complete stranger.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#124

Post by breezybottom »

wk_end wrote: post #19
CarVac wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true from time to time. Low's last digital releases are actually unlistenable due to heavy-handed compression, but the vinyl seems to have been spared. I had to record the vinyl to get usable digital files.

The loudness and compression on Low's last couple of albums is very much deliberate, so it's surprising that the vinyl doesn't have it. Though I heard similar claims about Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, which was also intensely compressed for artistic effect.

I mean you literally just acknowledged evidence that it WASN'T for artistic effect.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#125

Post by Dylan16807 »

chownie wrote: post #97
pembrook wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP has a valid question though. If you think its insane to spend that amount of money on it (essentially: it's not worth that much to you ), then you holding onto it instead of having $1300 is pretty much the exact same scenario? By holding onto it you're saying it is worth that much to you. It sounds like believing you hunted down a 'deal' causes you to wildly change how you perceive value at an emotional level. I w…

He wants the thing. He does not value the thing at 1300 dollars so he would not buy it for 1300 dollars. He found it for a lower value, he kept it because the point at the start was he wanted the thing. On the topic of HN users, is it our collective first day on earth?

> He does not value the thing at 1300 dollars

If you decline to sell a thing for an easy 1300, doesn't that mean you value it at 1300 or more?

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#126

Post by breezybottom »

hurtigioll wrote: post #73
everdrive wrote: post #7

It's a weird social psychology quirk. For whatever reason, the entire music industry has been captured by the delusion that mixing all the sounds louder is good. No one likes it, except for those guys. For reasons I'll never understand, the movie industry has been captured by the opposite delusion; they're going to pump dynamic range so high that you can only understand about half the dialogue in the movie. And of co…

remember when HN was saying "nobody wants big smartphones, why does the industry keep doing this? iPhone 4 size is the perfect size" hint - the industry is doing EXACTLY what (most) consumers want. there is a big difference between what a consumer tells you they want, and what actually they pay for

Physical media is dying, so that's a strange conclusion to draw.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#127

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

maqp wrote: post #68
larodi wrote: post #6

Depending on which vinyl you're talking about. I care very little about big names signed to big corpo - they can do whatever they want to their vinyl. There are plenty of indi/underground artists releasing both on vinyl and tampe, who succumbed to nothing, but are alive and well actually. Check bandcamp more often for clues, should you disagree.

PSA: https://dr.loudness-war.info/ is a great place to look for info on dynamic range of releases, and also, a great place to find new music with excellent dynamic range.

PSA 2: the formula used here can easily be gamed via inaudible phase alteration and can't be used to compare CD and LP. Ears are still much better until a correctly designed metric arrives.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#128

Post by breezybottom »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #22
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #5

The 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…

You might find it lame, but jazz has the highest share of physical media sales in the US

https://www.statista.com/chart/32863/genres-with-the-highest...

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#129

Post by Dylan16807 »

throw0101a wrote: post #123
NikolaNovak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematically that's absolutely true. Emotionally, it feels different. It's fascinating to see downright angry gut reactions! A few years ago my friend was selling his expensive camera on Kijiji. I asked him to sell it to me for slightly less as a friendly discount. He told me that's the same as just randomly one day giving me a wad of cash, so why would he do that?? I thought he's crazy and was a little bit offende…

> Buy for $x, have and not sell for $x, same mathematically. But oh boy will people get instantly riled up emotionally :). Price and value are not the same. The logic of your friend was basically putting a price on how "special" (or not) he saw your relationship versus some rando-buyer online. That is why people (close to you) get riled up emotionally: they're being treated in a way no different than a complete stran…

If you ask your friend for $100 for no particular reason, just because you want $100, that's an annoying request and "no" is a reasonable response. It's not putting a price on your relationship. It's technically the same answer they'd give a stranger, but that doesn't mean you're being treated like a stranger.

(I do think a slight discount often makes sense just because a friend is probably quicker and easier to deal with. But anything more substantial turns into asking for free stuff, and yes and no are both perfectly fine answers to that.)

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#130

Post by jorvi »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #105
thaumasiotes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He thinks that way because it's the only correct way to think. Try raising the value of the record and see what you think about it.

Mathematically that's absolutely true. Emotionally, it feels different. It's fascinating to see downright angry gut reactions! A few years ago my friend was selling his expensive camera on Kijiji. I asked him to sell it to me for slightly less as a friendly discount. He told me that's the same as just randomly one day giving me a wad of cash, so why would he do that?? I thought he's crazy and was a little bit offende…

Usually you give your friends a friendly discount because it saves the hassle from advertising, packing, etc. and also your friends return the favor.

But I would never sell something expensive to a friend, period. There be dragons.

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