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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)

#191

Post by wk_end »

breezybottom wrote: post #124
wk_end wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dunno if you’ve listened to these records in question but it’s very, very obviously for artistic effect. They’ve discussed it in interviews and stuff. Low wasn’t looking to get radio play with fractured collages of distorted noise. The “vinyl can’t reliably reproduce these waveforms” explanation someone else suggested makes the most sense.

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

#192

Post by breezybottom »

wk_end wrote: post #191
breezybottom wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I dunno if you’ve listened to these records in question but it’s very, very obviously for artistic effect. They’ve discussed it in interviews and stuff. Low wasn’t looking to get radio play with fractured collages of distorted noise. The “vinyl can’t reliably reproduce these waveforms” explanation someone else suggested makes the most sense.

Artists usually aren't involved at the mastering stage, at that point the music is already recorded and mixed.

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

#193

Post by vel0city »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #181
functionmouse wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CDs were most commonly played in cars on the loud highway

Huh? CDs are a poor fit in cars to the point that the ten disc changer in the trunk was a thing. To avoid the inevitable damage from swapping them.

Right? Why didn't we think to just use Android Auto or Carplay in the 90s/2000s. We were all such idiots back then.

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

#194

Post by pembrook »

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?

The point is it's irrational behavior. And we all do it.

It's burning $5 in gas and $20 in time to go to a store further away and save $25 on a sale item. And then proudly bragging "I'm not like those idiots who pay full price!"

OP didn't find a record...he found a $1300 arbitrage, then decided to spend the proceeds on the record by keeping it.

In other words, this is why selling stuff to consumers is a nightmare.

You have to trick them into believing they "won one over" on everybody else, via discounting and promotions, no matter if ultimately they're the ones losing by spending hours of their time jumping through hoops on a product that they legitimately value at full price.

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

#195

Post by kube-system »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #106
mrweasel wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic is a little broken for me... If he really wanted the record, and got it for $2, why would he then sell it and then not have it? Replacing it would cost at least $1300. You're logic is why so much in this world if fucking broken. Everything is a grift, a hustle, an opportunity for profit.

People are getting angry at the math here. I'm Not the OP and have no moral judgement here, but from strict bank account balance perspective it's the same. Persuade me otherwise through addition and subtraction, not moral appeals. 1. I have 10,000 in my bank account. 2. I see a 1,300 record I like 3. I buy it 4. My bank account now has 8700 5. There's 1,300 difference if I choose to buy it or not 1. I have 10,000 in…

This calculation is faulty because neglects all of the intangible value.

The reason anyone buys anything other than the minimum clothing, food, and shelter for mere survival is because of intangible value.

Any time you see someone who is not opting to optimize tangible value, it is likely that you are simply failing to observe some intangible value.

> Prove it wrong with numbers not appeals to emotion please.

This is a false dichotomy. Intangible value is not some fallacious appeal to emotion -- it is a real thing that economists overwhelmingly agree exists, but also recognize is difficult to put a number on.

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

#196

Post by aidenn0 »

functionmouse wrote: post #139
breezybottom wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why it's so bizarre that CDs are generally less dynamic than vinyl. There's no technical reason that should be the case.

CDs were most commonly played in cars on the loud highway

And the first CD player I saw in a car had a button to apply dynamic range compression.

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

#197

Post by aidenn0 »

pwarner wrote: post #159

I've taken to buying SACDs when possible. The format supports higher dynamic range, but that barely matters. The mix is the bigger issue and SACD mixes are often better. Note you need an SACD player. And also note this only applies for playing on a proper HiFi or with good headphones at least. In your car, etc you probably want the compressed mix.

I vaguely recall reading about a double-blind test with the DSD stream from an SACD converted to 44.1kHz 16-bit PCM.

Even without proper dithering, listeners could not tell the difference between that and the SACD[1], but could tell the difference between that and the CD version of the same album.

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

#198

Post by aidenn0 »

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

Anecdotally, I have gotten many compliments on my small Unihertz phones that I've owned over the years, particularly from women.

As far as revealed preference goes, those who complimented me on it all had the smallest iPhone available when purchased.

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

#199

Post by aidenn0 »

bob1029 wrote: post #18
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…

The full dynamic range is nice if you actually want to experience it and have a system capable of reproducing it. A dedicated center channel with a few hundred watts of amplification behind it will cut through the ambient backdrop like a hot knife through butter. You can watch Transformers or MI3 at reference volume with crystal clear dialogue if you're willing to throw enough power at the problem.

I have a decent[1] system with a dedicated center channel. Everybody complains that the mix is too loud if we tune for audible dialog on anything made in the past decade or so (MI3 bluray is fine, and I suspect that Transformers would be too).

1: Powered by a Denon AVR, not separates if you want to "No true cinephile" me.

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

#200

Post by idiotsecant »

pier25 wrote: post #160
pineaux wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a false way of saying it. Because then you are unpacking what dBs are, which is fascinating, but not how humans perceive sound. We use dBs exactly because it approaches human experience of sound better (although still shitty) than sound pressure would. A better logarithmic system would use base 2, I think phons tried to popularize that, but signal processing calculation with a base 2 log is less convenient th…

> That is a false way of saying it As an audio engineer I'm well aware of how decibels work and why we use them. You're talking about subjective perception but I'm talking about objective measurements.

This whole thread is about subjective perception, other than yours
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