I’m getting really hacked off with CD “brick walling” (Google “CD loudness war” to see the subject of my latest rant). I’ve recently bought a few CDs and the majority are affected by this stupid obsession with making the sound as loud as possible, at the expense of the music itself. What I’m hearing is the potential of good music which is veiled by clipping, distortion, crackling and generally being so loud that everything is at the same volume. There’s practically no dynamic range, at all, with everything being pushed up into the last few available decibels. The result is that waveform peaks get chopped off – so effectively there are no longer any peaks but instead there are “flats”, leading to lost information and distortion. A comparison between your typical, recent CD and a recording released now by B&W’s Society of Sound illustrates the glaring deficiencies of many recent commercial releases. What a difference. Generally speaking, my early CDs sound so much better than later ones, and I’m not talking about the style of music.
It’s getting worse. These days, a “digital remaster” re-release of an older album generally means that it’s louder. So that’s good, isn’t it? Well, no. Record companies need to understand that we’re not all earbud-toting, cloth-eared teenagers and give their mastering engineers some room for manoeuvre. Louder doesn’t equal better, for goodness’ sake. I would rather turn up the volume of something I like, than turn down the volume because it’s a wall of noise.
It’s no wonder the popularity of vinyl is on the increase.
