What a fascinating problem. This really cuts to the root of the issues of digital audio production. Why are recent CDs mastered so differently than older CDs? What is it about the mastering process that makes a disc sound good or bad? Proper compression is truly an art form.

Indeed. I have a live album by Pete Seeger (actually, quite a few of them, but one is afflicted by this problem more than others). It is 'peak normalised', but the peaks are the sound made by Pete's chair being pulled across the floor as he changed his position between songs. Songs themselves are almost inaudible.

But there is a problem with properly mastered albums, as well. A look at Car&Driver tells me that a car with noise level at highway cruising speed much lower than 70 dBA is a quiet car. That means we have some 50 dB between background noise level and bursting of speaker membranes / car windshield / our eardrums (while in a concert hall or a quiet listening room we have almost 100 dB). I am sure that intended difference between barely audible choir at the beginning of Tchaikowsky's 1812 and cannons later on is more than 50 dB. (There's a lot of classical pieces with great dynamic range; Dvorak's 'New World' symphony is one of my favourites I cannot listen to in the car without frequent volume adjustments.)

So, what do we do? Does anybody know of a 'compressor' for wav files? Maybe we should put real-time dynamics compression using empeg's DSP on the wish list?

Comments?

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
#5196