RadioBanter - View Single Post

July 29th 03, 07:42 PM

(WBRW) wrote in message ...
As far as TV goes, the music video channels have done exactly what the
major market FM radios have done: dynamically compressed the crap out
of their audio. This wreaks havic on matrix surround decoders such as
Pro-logic, because the phase differential requires significant
amplitude to be effective. So the front-to-surround signals just seem
to "bllllend" together, what I call "Velveeta surround"!

The last time I had cable TV, there was an inexcusibly large
difference in loudness and audio quality between the channels, and at
least 1/4th of them were in MONO.... including MTV!

And don't forget that the vast majority of today's music is highly
compressed, clipped, and distorted to begin with, on CDs, and of
course, encoding it into MP3/WMA/etc. makes it even worse. Even
supposedly 'soft' and 'relaxed' songs like Norah Jones' hit are
produced and mastered with highly limited dynamic range and clearly
audible clipping distortion (for example, during the 'loud' bridge
sections of "Don't Know Why" -- that grungy distortion in Norah's
voice is that way *right on the CD*).

Also, for the past decade or so, "Digitally Remastered" has become
nothing more than an euphemism for "highly equalized and compressed".
Even supposedly "pristine" albums like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the
Moon" have been subjected to this auditory mangling, all for the sake
with making them more "competitive" with the consistent loudness of
today's music. Alas, this is the reason why people are still buying
turntables... when you have the choice between a dynamically superior
original LP and a smashed-and-trashed CD re-release, of course the LP
is going to be preferred, even by people who aren't astute enough to
know the real reason why.

BTW, if you've wondered why digital photographs, even at high
resolutions, just don't look as natural and realistic as traditional
film photography, that's because of the limited VISUAL dynamic range
of the digital camera. This effect is componded by the fact that most
digital cameras store their pictures in JPG format -- which is a form
of "lossy" compression, just like MP3 for audio.

_______________________
And then to really rub it in Ana Log's face, those "Digital Remasters"
are of the original LP lacquer cut - dynamics lost forever. Which is
WHY I'm such a digital kludge in the first place!

-CC