Thanks Paul, BOARDMAKER. It was music in my playlist, soul classics like Gloria Jones, Temptations and others like that, the vocals just took center stage. Newer tracks tend to sound like every part of the song is at equal volume, nothing stands out. It makes country sound like rock.
One play I really noticed it was on songs by Deep Purple, auditioning their older songs from Machine Head and In Rock, from 4 decades ago, compared to a newer album they did ten years ago. I don't think the new album is hypercompressed, but the sound is so different it's surprising. Same kind of music, mixed a lot tighter.
I can see how putting a hypercompressed song into a processor would mangle it even more and increase distortion.
Were they really horn speakers? I could see that, to project sound up into the front seat. I had a friend and we'd go places in his dad's truck, and his dad had a horn speaker hooked up to the radio, and hanging between the visors in front. It was just a PA speaker, but my friend thought his dad was just being an oldie, using something ancient, and he'd laugh at it. I didn't say anything, he probably liked that image of his dad.
On the subject of rock tracks, over the last few days i have been refurbing my AM Stereo Carver tuner, and listening to some classic rock tracks off air, sounds great !
Once the weather improves i intend to carry out my mark 2 part 15 type antenna, as the ground plane was done end of last year.
If you are interested i will upload an off air rock track and post the link.
Paul.
So its not just me. Yes I have noticed with the newer mixed classics that there is no dynamic range. Its either on or off no happy medium. Its the loudness wars. And to top it all off you hear a sort of rat tat tat tat in the music as the guitars play or extreme harmonies try to come in. You can tell all their looking for is that volume. Sounds like pure T shit. I can't believe some of these engineers are actually recording stuff like this. At least the UK stuff is recorded better. Look for EMI limited instead of EMI because its better.
Yes practically all remastered albums are hypercompressed, and yes all transient detail is lost.
As the peaks are clipped, some quite badly, you can hear harsh clipping and upfront vocals can have a brittle harshness to them.
I have been told the hypercompression is added by the record label, during the final mastering, not at the studio master.
Paul.
I think that's one of the biggest problems in music today, in dealing with old music, it's not enough just to find a band, now you have to look for which of the many versions are the best, since different record companies fiddle with the sound in different ways.
I'm glad to hear rare releases that I couldn't hear otherwise, but it seems that many don't care, they license masters from somewhere, and throw them on CD or files. I don't think they really master them as much as drive the waves into clipping the peaks, then reduce them by half a db and copy to CD, and clipping sounds worse with mp3, even on files from iTunes that should have the best mastering to that format. Initially clipping might offer seemingly more highs, but it's all harmonics.
I trust music from Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, they do live by the 'Fidelity" in their name more than others.