In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"Telamon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"Brenda Ann" wrote in message
...


Most people don't even notice it, such is the way of today's music
(most
any format). It's all part of the 'volume wars'. Stations clamoring to
get noticed in a sea of other stations, so they want their signal to be
as
loud as possible.

If anything, processing is less on the average than it was in the 70's
and
80's on FM, or the way it was in the 60's on AM.

The argument is dynamic range and I find your 6 dB figure unbelievable.

That was Brenda Ann's statement, but I agree with her that the range is
limited to about that figure, with a few give and takes. CHR stations may be
a little less, while AC's and such may be a little more, but not much in
either direction.

Eduardo talks about how stations have been using compression for many
decades. This may well be true, but not the vast majority of them.

I don't recall ever seeing a US station without at least a peak limiter
going back to the late 50's. And everywhere I went, I visited stations...
ranging from places like Ludington, MI, to San Francisco.

Fine. I understand the need for limiting. So what.

Limiting is a form of compression since it removes excursions in excess of
the level that would produce 100% modulation (or 100% negative peaks on AM).

Not really. Limiting is a hard stop that is not ever passed. Compression
is an algorithm applied to the program material that attempts to prevent
reaching that max limit but it could go over limit in extreme
circumstances.

Then the Audimax and Volumax came out in the early 60's and we all went
crazy changing the components to get more clipping and greater and faster
AGC. The 80's brought multiband processors from Durrough and Gregg Labs
and
such, and culminated with the Optimod.

Look, I understand that there are limiter and processors but I just
can't believe most stations compress music into a 6 dB range. That's
just not right.


It's what works.

I don't think so. Maybe that's why I can't listen to most FM stations as
you helped pervert the sound.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California