The ten best sounding albums of all time (Pop/Rock)

You may remember my series of articles published in 2012 where I tackled albums that, in my opinion, were 10 of the best / worst sounding. When I began them with this post, I initially planned to include a list containing Pop/Rock albums. But I soon discovered that I simply couldn´t find ten examples of well sounding mainstream releases. I´m not listening to crap usually described as sounding great, for example albums like 'Brothers in Arms' or 'The Dark Side of the Moon', this isn´t my music. Especially the latter album is pretty old and it sounds like that, despite having been remastered, what feels like, every two years. What about the favorite of middle-aged, str8 audiophiles, Alison Krauss? Oh, please, no Bluegrass for me! Besides, I wouldn´t want to include something I don´t listen to just for the sake of finishing an article. So I decided to not write that list, which, as a result, also nixed the 10-worst-sounding-albums of all time. But we have 2015 now, three years have passed and several new albums have been released (and bought by me) in the meantime which also made me rediscover old albums of mine. So go ahead and enjoy a new article. Other Best-of articles are:

• The ten best-sounding classical releases of all time!
• The ten worst-sounding classical releases of all time!
• The ten best-sounding organ recordings of all time!
• The ten worst-sounding organ recordings of all time!
• The ten worst-sounding scores of all time!
• The ten best-sounding scores of all time!

After years of abuse of brickwall limiting, Tori Amos finally released 'Unrepentant Geraldines' in 2014. In my opinion, it is the best sounding Pop/Rock album ever released. It sounds very pleasant but not boring. The sound isn´t nervous for one second yet it still sounds crisp and dynamic. Apart from some slight limiting, dynamic compression is either absent or perfectly done (I assume the latter). I cannot find any flaw whatsoever with this album and it will sound well everywhere. But you will marvel at the immaculate recording of Tori's voice and several instruments (chief among them her Bösendorfer, of course) on good equipment only, articulation and spatiality really shine on neutral devices not faking anything - which rules out most boutique hardware trying to impress with something that isn´t there. The music? Well, it took me a while to get used to it, I was expecting something similar to 'Night of Hunters' which was a classical album. One day, I took the CD into our car and drove long enough to play the whole album - after that, I was in love. Not only does it sound wonderful, the music is wonderful, too. Example: "16 Shades of Blue".

Other well sounding Tori-creations

One advice: avoid the 24/96 version you can find on several HiRes stores, it is fake and the CD sounds better than 99% of most HiRes albums anyway. Not surprising given Tori's history of well-engineered releases. They aren´t perfect but they´re very, very good. Her milestone 'Under the Pink', released in 1994, has always been famous for its good sound. But don´t do it like me and buy the 2015 remaster... unless you want her gorgeous 'Pink'-B-sides. It is a bit more brickwall-limited than the original version and on two tracks ("The Wrong Band" & "The Waitress") there's an audible mastering error sounding like partially reversed polarity. 'Boys for Pele' sounds roughly the same as the original version of 'Pink', albeit less crisp. 'Night of Hunters', released in 2011, comes close to 'Geraldines' but it suffers from old-fashioned dynamic compression which doesn´t sound well on voices nor her piano.

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Kate Bush's 2011-album '50 Words for Snow' is one perfect sounding example of a recent analogue recording. The only flaw I´m able to find is a pronounced bass area which makes the piano bigger than necessary, apart from that it´s perfectly engineered. Expansive, yet restrained soundscapes with good placement of instruments and voices with great articulation - just listen to Elton John on "Snowed in at Wheeler Street". On equipment too warm and charming this album will sound like shit - again, boutique hardware shouldn´t be used. Kate has always taken great care with the sound of her albums, however, this one trumps all the others and is better than the rest. You can buy true HiRes versions of this album and I recommend you do that as they aren´t as much dynamically compressed as the CD.

More well-engineered concoctions by Kate

Musically, '50 Words' shows the artistic development Kate Bush has achieved throughout the decades. Compare the songs with the early '80s piece "December will be Magic again" and you will notice that she´s able to bring across a wintery atmosphere with a far less complex arrangement. This low-key approach didn´t fare well with fans who preferred her older, more dense albums, calling it either boring or pretentious. But it should have been clear for years that this is the road she wants to go, judging by 'Aerial' and her 2011-re-working of two of her older albums, 'Director's Cut'. I just love it, it calms me whenever I feel nervous or anxious. For everyone else, I can recommend her early masterpiece 'Hounds of Love'.

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I don´t know if Daft Punk has always sounded like they do on the 2013-success 'Random Access Memories' but to me it would be surprising if they didn't. 'RAM' showcases a level of engineering perfectness I´ve rarely heard from an album intended to be bought by the masses. Yes, the music is commercial, meaning, a bit bland and simple. But who will mind that if it sounds so fuckin' fantastic AND is a lot of fun? Brickwall limiting is, for the most part, well done and not too strong which was one hell of a surprise for me two years ago. Dynamics are otherwise perfect, articulation is too. Staging suffers a bit by being slightly 'unstable' (I hate audiophile speak). The HiRes version isn´t a fake, this album seems to have been recorded either in HiRes or analogue. Very recommended, will be sounding good anywhere.

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Touch Yello: the 2009-album of Swiss electronica-band Yello would have fitted nicely into the '80s when it comes to sound (if the '80s would have been sonically perfect). It sounds what detractors and fans alike would call 'digital'. Precision, differentiation and tiny details are the prominent traits of this album... which can be a bit much on occasion, you won´t exactly find this album too pleasant. In part, this sound is caused by less emphasis on frequencies around 100 Hz, emphasis is on very deep bass instead. As a result, this one can be used to find out if your equipment fakes or misses something (don´t listen to this with Grado headphones!). Don´t play it on devices engineered to sound faster and crisper, you will hate it and run away because of all the abrasiveness. Doesn´t sound well everywhere but almost perfect on neutral machinery. Brickwall limting and way too loud? You bet. Though not readily audible. The music? Typical Yello, updated to sound recent, with an additional jazz flavor, featuring guest stars like Till Brönner, it certainly is an acquired taste and a throwback to early electronic music. I for one love it!

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Yes, I´m ashamed to include this one, the album 'The Memory of Trees' from 1995. Artistically speaking, there´s only one suitable title for it: "The sound of stagnation". Really, it sounds like anything Enya has ever done: masses of vocal clouds, cheap synthesizers, meaningless & pseudo-philosophical lyrics, bad Latin. But - and it pains me to write it - it is awful music that sounds fantastic. Enya's voice has been recorded with utter perfection, articulation and placement are top-notch. Her vocal clouds are placed well, surrounding the listener while sounding intelligible. Everything drowns in tons of reverb, of course,... but it doesn´t matter since it's well done and doesn´t disturb directionality. Beware: it will sound mellow and boring on bad equipment. Remarkable sound for an album that has just turned 20 by an artist usually not known for good sound. Her second album 'Watermark' sounds well, too - with the exception of her voice: it´s monaural - including the reverb - which yields a pretty strange effect. Musically, though, it´s superior (relatively speaking) so you might want to compromise if you decide to buy either one of them.

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I´m not ashamed to include this one: 'Ray of Light' by the one and only Queen of Pop, Madonna. Musically, it was the first album of hers that made the general public realize how good a songstress Madge really is (they seem to be deaf considering iconic songs like "Live to tell" or "This used to be my playground"). Centering around themes of personal development, religion and childbirth, it introduced a reflective Madonna, a grown woman coming to peace with herself. In retrospective, most of her albums since then (ignore 'Hard Candy' & 'MDNA') have been centering on themes close to her heart (her strongest is, in my opinion, 'American Life'). But - and I´m always surprised - nobody seems to realize that 'Ray of Light' also sounds wonderful. It isn´t brickwall-limited, you have tons of 0dBfs distortions instead. Those can be repaired easily with a tool like iZotope's Declipper, turning the album into one featuring mastering-quality sound. It can be used to determine if something colours or fakes dynamics. Take the titular song, "Ray of Light": it should never sound abrasive nor aggressive. Yet it also shouldn´t sound boring or too warm. It´s supposed to sound fast, like it was easy to playback, organized instead of chaotic. The same goes for "Swim"; of importance are timing, "prat" and if the bass is hollow or not. "Frozen" should have stable spatiality (lesser gear will make the placement of Madge's voice and instruments opague). In short: great music, pleasant to listen to, terrific for dancing, all embedded into a fine sounding package.

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Musically as meaningless as Enya above, Enigma's first album, "MCMXC a.D." was an extremely successful cash-in on the New Age crowd that extended to the mainstream. It also was an example of what happens when someone who is knowledgeable about electronic music production has some new toys to play around with (hello, Euphonix). By using samples from everyone and mixing Gregorian chants with dance beats, mastermind Michael Cretu created something that shouldn´t have existed but was stylish nonetheless. The concept proved to be marketable in the years after with 6 more albums released until 2008 (the 8th seems to be on its way). While they too had good sound, they failed to have the same mixture of elegance, style, easy melodies and balls. The first one is still the most sublime Enigma release and it´s surprising that it hasn´t dated that much sonically. Even though it is 25 years old, the Shakuhachi flute has been abused constantly by others and Gregorian chants won´t excite anyone anymore, it still sounds fresh. And very good, too! It won´t ever sound bad on mediocre equipment, you cannot use it to reveal weaknesses. Good sound everywhere, interesting, if a tad old-fashioned, it´s a New Age-release recommended to anyone.

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Surprised? The third outing by the late singer Whitney Houston, 'I'm Your Baby Tonight' has always sounded well for an early '90s album. But I´m talking about the version clandestinely released sometime around 2014 or so. It has been remastered, it is in HiRes, not brickwall limited and available for cheap money on Qobuz. The remastering was able to improve the sound a lot, in fact, apart from a not too strong bass area it now sounds almost perfect for an overproduced studio recording aimed at the masses originally released in 1990. And again, it shouldn´t sound abrasive or too fluffy. If you like a mixture of badly dated dance tracks and strong ballads, you´re in for a fun ride.

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Timing is of the utmost importance with this album. You´ll notice immediately if bass seems to follow the rest of the frequency band. While 'Synkronized', the fourth album of funk band Jamiroquai, doesn´t sound too pleasant, it also shouldn´t sound too fast, meaning, abrasive or nervous. Crispness and prat are keys to its sound. There´s a reason I use it for reviewing gear. You can diminish the aggressiveness somewhat by removing the 0dBfs distortions. Like the Madonna album up above, it wasn´t produced using brickwall limiting, instead the mastering engineer just made it louder which crushed basses. It can be repaired, which I did for personal listening pleasure. Since then I´ve enjoyed wonderful sound aside from music I still like very much.

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This musical example of a paranoid, yet extremely talented and musical genius doesn´t sound too good. Bass feels sluggish most of the time, the singer's voice could be more pronounced on occasion, staging tends to favor width instead of depth, most songs sound a bit too brittle. On the other hand, the strenghts of its sound can be found in its ability to reveal weaknesses of the gear you play it with. As was typical for any Michael Jackson release, 'HIStory' was overproduced, yielding extremely dense and taxing soundscapes. The most prominent examples would be "Earth Song" & the titular track; the first has a mix so dense that it´s almost impossible to decipher everything contained in it. For example, there´s a tambourine on the right side that starts to play during the chorus, it can be used to test for resolution and balance. Try to listen to the tambourine player change the way he/she shakes his/her instrument: on mediocre equipment that is impossible, every colourization will cause it to disappear, sounding opaque. Furthermore, the song should never sound strained. The mix sounds as if it is on the brink of falling apart - it isn´t and it shouldn´t sound like that. Michael's voice is not supposed to sound raucous, you wouldn´t believe how often I´ve heard some gear doing exactly that by adding some artificial sounding element. With the song "HIStory" concentrate on the overlapping voices at the end. We possess the ability to select individual voices from a group of people all speaking at the same time. This works with recordings, too, but in this case, only uncoloured playback will enable you to select someone. Then there is something sounding at first glance like high frequency artifacts during the chorus of the song, you will hear them only if your equipment doesn´t sound "charming". Yet it isn´t supposed to sound strained or cold, so, again, the balance is most important. I have only two devices able to playback this album without any major flaw: the Xonar Essence STX and the Sony MZ-R 50 (!). The Essence STX even manages to reveal some nice spatiality. Summing up, this album will sound mediocre on bad hardware and good on neutral devices not hampered by distortions of any kind (which rules out tubes - and I don´t feel any compassion for people clinging to archaic electronics (just ignore for a moment that I like the MiniDisc, will you?)). And if you like your music to be aggressive, paranoid yet engaging New-Jack-Swing with some added R'n'B and some sappy ballads, this is for you. For me, it has always been one of my favourite albums.

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Last update: 30.06.2015

Review: iRiver IMP-550

You´re about to read the third out of nine reviews. You don´t need to read them all, just pick the unit that seems to be the most interesting to you. In the weeks to follow I´ll review the following units: Kenwood DP-5090, Pioneer DV-610, Sony CDP-470, Pioneer BDP-140, iRiver IMP-550, Sony MZ-R 55, Sony MZ-R 37, Sony NW-A 1000 and the Sansa Clip+. Stay tuned and enjoy the third review: the iRiver IMP-550! I also implore you to read the article describing my rigorous testing methodology before you actually start reading this one.

iRiver IMP-550

Back in 2003 when portable CD players started a second (but brief) life as mp3 players a small company named iRiver rose to prominence and became the darling of PC magazines journalists and geeks alike. They combined a spectacular number of features (even unnecessary ones) with supposedly great sound and a superior manufacturing quality. The IMP-550 from their SlimX line seems to express iRivers' approach nicely: apart from a lovely finish it also sports features more akin to a PC, features I´ve never ever seen on a portable CD player before. You can update its firmware, change scroll speed, alter playback speed, are able to choose between several DSPs, for example a 3D effect or several equalizers. Since it lacks a display iRiver equipped the remote integrated into the headphone cable with a huge display capable of showing ID Tags as well as CD-Text information. I got it for surprisingly little money, especially when I consider the state it was in when it arrived: my unit doesn´t seem to have been used often and if, it apparently has been treated very well. The main reason to own it was the desire to try something else; my motto was "not another Sony." To be perfectly honest, I don´t like the design of the iRiver that much, it tries to look elegant but in my opinion it looks boring and uninspired. But being the owner of a portable player isn´t about design only, isn´t it?

iRiver IMP-550 closeup - Who the hell is "INNO"?

The promise of a well execuited finish certainly is fulfilled: iRiver incorporated several - I assume - quality parts onto its mainboard. The main processor of the IMP-550 is the SAA7750 by Philips (now NXP Semiconductors), it is responsible for decoding lossy audio material, DSP functions - in short all the functions you´d need for a portable multicodec CD player. D/A conversion is achieved by a Sony CXD3023R, regrettably I couldn´t find any information about it. The CD drive itself is manufactured by Samsung and it looks a lot like a drive designed for laptops. While layout and manufacturing of the mainboard certainly look gorgeous this Samsung drive seems to play in another league because it gets very loud when working. But let´s have a look at my measurments now, shall we?

iRiver IMP-550 measurments

iRiver IMP-550 jitter

Wow, I think that these are the best measurments for a portable player I´ve ever seen. No distortions, very little noise, inaudible jitter artifacts - perfect. This should be mirrored by its sound, shouldn´t it? Sadly it doesn´t sound as well as I had hoped after reading all the glowing reviews written by others. It smears details and transients, shows a compressed and not very wide stage while having a preference for very high frequencies. The latter should help definition and resolution but instead it sounds rather opaque. On occasion high frequency details feel as if they´re dissolving into noise, the other end of the spectrum is too thick, obscuring bass punches a bit. The presence range seems diminished which probably is the reason for a sound that never sizzles or seagues into strident territory, its missing attack turns every kind of music into easy listening. The extreme high frequency definition from Episode II soundtrack for example turns into noise, it looses its crispness. The track from "Ray of Light" sounds much too nice and removes the rest of attack this warm and calm sounding album has. I´ve had players like this before; but they at least combined a similar sound with a much better stage impression while also adding a lovely euphonic colour and a certain kind of soothing warmth. Before I measured it I listened to it so I expected it to measure badly, I was surprised when it didn´t. I´m not exactly disappointed by this result because it could be particularly advantageous for albums that have been engineered to sound too aggressive. Yes, it might be a solution for "Loudness War" music - but not for anything else so you, dear reader, decide for yourself.

Sonic Balance:

Dynamics:

Resolution:

Stage / Ambiance:

Character:

iRiver IMP-550 Samsung drive

iRiver IMP-550 line out (with S/PDIF)

The Need to Panic: the disease 'Loudness War' is spreading!

Introduction

Hello again my little Darlings! Today I will stand witness, not for the prosecution but for crimes against good audio quality. I will present proof that something that once was healthy now suffers from an illness so severe that no one knows if it will ever be able to recover again. The "something" this article is about is called audio quality and the illness it currently suffers from has been known for decades as 'Loudness War'. Besides presenting numerous examples I also argue that this 'Loudness War' is partly responsible for declining sales of published music (-> CDs, downloads, etc.) and that it´s a crime against peoples' nerves by producing static. A true disgrace to the technical capabilities of the CD format and its possible achievable dynamic music produced right now exhibits a limited dynamic range comparable to the Edison cylinder from 1909. Roughly 15 years ago this illness was mainly contained in the country of "Pop/Rock/Rap/Soul" but in recent years has been spreading into the land of "Scores/Classic/Jazz". Like many other diseases it behaves without intelligence or emotion, its only motivation is greed. Symptoms are as follows:

• brickwall limiting
• awkward frequency response
• audible distortions
• absence of natural dynamic
• 'life' seems drained out of the music

The ultimate fate of patients affected is death causing in turn the demise of the music industry as we know it. Not all of the symptoms above need to be present though in order for the patient to be described as being suffering from 'Loudness War'. Another thing: as with every other malady mild and severe cases need to be distinguished. The patients used as examples will be subjects recently exposed to this abnormal condition, furthermore these patients will come solely from the land 'Scores'. So let´s start by having a look at two subjects where one is not affected and the other one is:

Subject 1: 'Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings' - not affected

Subject 2: 'The Dark Knight Rises' - severely affected (already treated with "ReplayGain" here)

Compare the two individuals above: Subject 1 (Birthdate: 2001) doesn´t show any signs of the horrible disease, dynamic peaks are intact, loud parts of the music are loud but not brickwall limited while soft parts are delicate. Frequency response (not pictured) behaves completely natural. Subject 2 (Birthdate: 2012) shows strong signs of brickwall limiting, absence of natural dynamic and an awkward frequency response (pictured further below).

History of the Illness

What are you saying? I´ve been too fast? Where does the disease come from, you want to know... Well, it has been in existence for quite some time. It first emerged in the '60s in an attempt to make music as loud as possible considering the very limited abilities of the then-in-use vinyl distribution format. First Phil Spector and then Motown Records tried to squeeze out every single bit of Loudness in order for their products to be perceived better than others while also combating the poor high frequency performance of then present radio. This continued for a while and wasn´t remotely as severe as it is today - the technical gadgets available to us today were simply not existing all those years ago. Surprisingly, when the CD was introduced in 1982 the affliction turned dormant for a while, probably because people had to learn how to work with a digital (absolute) format. But at the beginning of the '90s the 'Loudness War' returned with an unparallelled force and it has been worsening ever since. More and more people are reporting rather extreme cases that even got mentionend in articles from mainstream magazines.
Who is responsible? I call them Men In Suits (abbreviated as MIS) who mostly are managers (-> investors / bosses), their natural habitat being the executive floor in huge buildings containing the offices of music publishing businesses like Sony Music, Universal or EMI. These MIS firmly believe that something that is louder will be bought by more people, hence will be generating more profit so that they can purchase another Porsche. They hide their desire for profit under a decent looking mask and say sentences like "The public wants it so". In their defense they actually have a tiny point: if out of two musical objects one is louder than the other the louder one will be perceived as sounding better, this has something to do with how our ear works. Of course, MIS are using this fact soleley to hide their greed. Anyway, Mastering Engineers (abbreviated as ME) are the poor blokes ending up spreading the desease, sucking every dynamic out of recordings and turning them into frightful sounding monsters. They are actually fully aware of what they are doing, all the while claiming that they are unable to do something about it.

Examples

Now back to the symptoms, shall we? As described above brickwall limiting and dynamic mutilation are not the only things 'Loudness War' does to audio quality. Another very audible symptom are strange frequency responses prompting equally strange reactions in listeners. In an effort to sound well on an iPod or a cellphone the overall frequency response has been changed into something that barely resembles natural sound. How would an ideal frequency response look like? Well, it would have the form of a curve decreasing towards higher frequencies. A curve like that takes into account how us humans perceive sound: low frequencies (bass) can only be perceived with great difficulty by our ear, higher frequencies (treble) are less of a problem. At the same time our ear can hear exceptionally well at frequencies in the middle (1.000 to 3.000 Hz). Recordings not affected by the health impairment adhere to this concept not by countering our hearing sensivity but by presenting a pleasing overall sonic package. Have a look at two examples:

A perfect and idealized frequency response

Subject 3: 'Superman Returns' - extremely close to the ideal above

You can see how gradually the curve declines towards high frequencies. You can also see that Subject 3 'Superman Returns' (Birthdate: 2006) and its frequency response match the idealized response almost perfectly. The only exceptions are missing deep bass below 65 Hz, rendering the perceived sound to be "faster", and a little bump at roughly 14.000 Hz. That 'mountain' is responsible for the amount of air this score presents. Bumps or "Mountains" as small as these represent a clever method to infuse audio quality with something of a "sonic character". Following now are two examples of subjects suffering from an extreme case of frequency distortion with their condition being critical:

Subject 4: 'Salt' - critical deviations

Subject 2 again: 'The Dark Knight Rises' - awful

Subject 4 (Birthdate: 2010) is able to serve as a very prominent example how serious 'Loudness War' can affect audio quality. The deviations in frequency response cause such unbearable suffering for the patient that even its description prooves problematic. Bass and treble are extremely exaggerated while the mids are recessed. Frequencies around 1.000 Hz  on the other hand are amplified to counter the extreme gain at both frequency ends. Combine that with the effects of excessive brickwall limiting (not pictured) and you are watching a patient being close to death. A skeptical person might now argue that this frequency response is caused by the many synthesizers, drum pads and samplers employed for the production of this score. But one listen to the score crushes this otherwise valid argument because in places where the pure orchestra can be heard the response still presents itself as being heavily distorted. The effect on listeners is an audio quality that is shrill, piercing, lifeless, colourless and extremely unnerving. The medical state of Subject 2 is not that critical. Instead of sounding piercing it "only" sounds shrill, dull, flat and full of 'droning' bass, in short, equally unnerving. But not all is bad in the land of scores because even now there are still a few exceptions around suffering only from mild or serious but stable cases of 'Loudness War':

Subject 5: 'The Bourne Legacy' - stable

Subject 5 is dynamically not as healthy as its frequency response

Subject 6: 'The Amazing Spider-Man' - a healthy patient

Subject 6 is also dynamically in good health with only slight limiting

Subject 5 (Birthdate: 2012) presents an interesting case: while it may look like a serious affection on paper it isn´t like that in reality. This score is perfectly suited for comparison to Subject 4 ('Salt') because both movies contain similar themes, their music similar orchestration and the same amount of artificial elements. Additionally, both scores are composed and engineered by the very same persons (James Newton Howard (composing) and Shawn Murphy (engineering)). In case of Subject 5 however the frequency response is actually pretty balanced, the artificial elements are well integrated and sound non-intrusive. The slight imperfections can be treated fairly easy with an equalizer, just as well as its dynamic compression can be removed with another medicine that will be mentionend later in the section "Therapy".
Not many words need to be spend on Subject 6 (Birthdate: 2012) since it appears to be in very good health with the result that it sounds exceptionally well (A sidenote: Dear producers, composers and engineers - yes, I know that you read my blog - a review from me can be simple and positive as evidenced by those two words).

Subject 7: 'The Avengers' - an interesting case

Subject 8: 'Snow White and the Huntsman' - more or less affected like Subject 5

Subject 7 (Birthdate: 2012) is a very interesting case because it deviates in an entirely different direction by decreasing high frequencies even further, resulting in a warm and voluptuous sonic character. Apart from having the brickwall limiting symptom it showcases a very well designed and characteristic audio quality. Subject 8 (Birthdate: 2012) is an example of a patient not unlike Subject 5 ('The Bourne Legacy') with the exception that bass is much too strong and frequencies around 2.000 Hz have too much power (again to counter the strong bass). Like Subject 5 this can be treated fairly well with several medicines.

Subject 9: 'The Shadow' - a frequency response infused with character

Now let´s have a look at scores being called "remastered", the score for 'The Shadow' serving as an example for all other releases by small independent labels, in this case Intrada. A remaster can be described as something akin to the rebirth of a score, occasionally it´s easier to just re-create a patient instead of prescribing medicine to get rid of the symptoms. In many cases however "remastering" means: "make it louder". The potential buyer expects of course that the last, yet unheard detail may be uncovered... but in 90% of all cases he/she is sadly wrong. Ironically, with every current remastering the patients' condition gets more critical by adding more treble, bass and gain. Subject 9 (Birthdate: 1994, Rebirth: 2012) luckily isn´t such a case; it shows a complete lack of brickwall limiting (not pictured) and a characteristic frequency response caused by the employment of synthesizers which are producing strange noises working within the sonic context. In fact, overall audio quality is fairly high and has been improved over the first release from 1994. That one suffered from analogue, dynamic compression producing 'pumping' artifacts which are nowhere to be found here. This is a rebirth where you have MORE dynamic range than before. In my opinion the frequency response could have been a bit more on the warm side for the rebirth since a more voluptuous sound would have suited the golden tinted atmosphere of the score better. Of course, this is complaining on an extremely high level because this score has been treated very, very well during its rebirth.

Effects

During my introduction I´ve already stated some of the effects afflicted patients may have on listeners. Effects can be cumulative though that isn´t always the case. They are as follows:

• listening fatigue
• headaches
• ringing ears
• bleeding ears (unconfirmed)
• heightened anger
• high blood pressure
• wrecked nerves

The most interesting effect would be listening fatigue. How to measure if someone is affected by it? Do we really know that 'Loudness War' affected patients are the cause for creating fatigue for the listener? Before we talk about it we need to distinguish between psychological fatigue and physical fatigue. The first one is predicated on the perception of Loudness by the listener only. The latter one can be caused by two things: mechanical fatigue and biochemical fatigue. As suggested by James D. Johnston in his article "Listener Fatigue and Longevity" outer hair cells might be depolarized if exposed to high loudness over certain periods of time. Secondary, the inner hair cell firing rate is proportional to loudness, meaning that if something has more loudness our ear starts to protect itself by decreasing the amount of information it is sending to the brain.
Psychological or cognitive fatigue is more difficult to describe because it´s hard to measure. But it´s safe to say that with speech signals multiband compression flattens the signal and causes a loss of articulation, prompting the brain to work harder to process the information. Dynamically compressed transients contained in recordings affected by the 'Loudness War' crush the leading edge of the signal, thereby reducing intelligibility and again forcing the listener working hard to understand its content. On the other hand, slower dynamic compression motivates the listener to regard the music playing right now as background music - it will be tuned out and ignored because it isn´t a cognitive challenge anymore (not to be confused with the aforementionend challenge of increased processing power). All of this turnes music into noise. Rip Rowan described it transparently in his article "Over the Limit":

"WHY IS THE LOUDER IS BETTER APPROACH THE WRONG APPROACH? BECAUSE WHEN ALL OF THE SIGNAL IS AT THE MAXIMUM LEVEL, THEN THERE IS NO WAY FOR THE SIGNAL TO HAVE ANY PUNCH. THE WHOLE THING COMES SCREAMING AT YOU LIKE A MESSAGE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. AS WE ALL KNOW, WHEN YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS THERE ARE NO CUES TO HELP THE BRAIN MAKE SENSE OF THE SIGNAL, AND THE MIND TIRES QUICKLY OF TRYING TO PROCESS WHAT IS, BASICALLY, WHITE NOISE. LIKEWISE, A SIGNAL THAT JUST PEGS THE METERS CAUSES THE BRAIN TO REACT AS THOUGH IT IS BEING FED WHITE NOISE. WE SIMPLY FILTER IT AND QUIT TRYING TO PROCESS IT."

Another result that you need to look at: the decline of sales for the music industry. Have you noticed the recent increase in sales for the old, very outdated vinyl format? It has been stated for example by Kristina Dell in a Time Magazine article that the perceived "warmer" sound of vinyl might have to do something with the necessity of using finesse during mastering in order to work around vinyl's physical limitations regarding signal level. Compare that to the brutal sledgehammer approach applied to CDs. Declining sales happened at roughly the same time as the Loudness of CDs went to extreme levels. The big labels (--> Sony, Universal, EMI, etc.) won´t hear any of it, for them the culprit causing declining sales is easily identified as being a filesharer.
They do have a point: sales have been declining since the year 2000, the same time when mp3 and filesharing rose to mainstream prominence. Since it´s then easy to come to the filesharers-are-guilty conclusion the result was that they were starting to lobby for stronger rights enforcement. But as ME Bob Ludwig states: "People talk about downloads hurting record sales. I and some other people would submit that another thing that is hurting record sales these days is the fact that they are so compressed that the ear just gets tired of it. When you're through listening to a whole album of this highly compressed music, your ear is fatigued. You may have enjoyed the music but you don't really feel like going back and listening to it again.".
So our subconscious (hello Sigmund) might be responsible for diminishing sales since it obvisously cannot stand 'Loudness War' affected patients anymore. When we stretch this argument to its logical conclusion it´s safe to say that 'Loudness War' is a danger to the artform 'music' itself. Contrast (dynamic) creates tension, an intellectual and emotional challenge if you will, if one removes that you are left with garbage that formerly was art. Another opinion to support the theory of diminishing financial returns caused by 'Loudness War' comes from ME Bob Speer, who wrote in 2001 that "The record labels blame digital downloads, MP3s, CD burners, and others for the lack of CD sales. While there is some truth to their constant whining, they only have themselves to blame for the steady decline in CD sales. The record labels need to reevaluate what they consider to be good music. Much of the music being produced today isn't music at all. It's best described as anti-music. It's anti-music because the life is being squashed out of it through over compression during the tracking, mixing, and mastering stages. (...) It's no wonder that consumers don't want to pay for the CDs being produced today. They're over priced and they sound bad."
Additionally, Nick Southall wrote in 2006 that "Compression will continue to be abused in the pursuit of loudness for as long as the recording industry believes that louder shifts units (...) Global album sales are falling year-on-year, far less mega-million-selling records are occurring (...) and I think this is because the clamour to make music louder has made it less loveable, and in the long run loveable sells more." I´m afraid that his call for action won´t reach the people responsible for it. As the recent financial crisis has shown managers in charge of multi-million-dollar companies are rarely interested in long term profit. They strive for an easy success, achievable during a short time period (this is actually taught in college).
All these theories and opinions are supported by the Evergreen Project. There the author Chris Johnson visually analyzed spectograms from a number of the most commercially successful albums; he found out that "the more strongly they sell, the more likely it is that they will have High Contrast characteristics," meaning a wide dynamic range. In particular, speaking about the album 'Greatest Hits 1971-1975' by The Eagles he continues that "it is gratifying, but unsurprising, to discover that the single most commercially important album in RIAA history contains some of the most striking dynamic contrasts pop music's ever seen."

Granted, he talks about pop music there - but if 'Loudness War' is bad for pop how much more difficult might the situation be regarding filmscores? Those consist of recordings made with an orchestra and while slight dynamic compression always has been a part of the sound of Rock/Pop/Soul music this can´t be applied that easily to orchestral recordings. On natural instruments dynamic compression tends to be very audible since it destroys timbre and character, it simply removes microdynamics vital for recognizing them. These instruments are part of the orchestration that most of the time has been carefully fleshed out - effectively dynamic compression or brickwall limiting destroys the message of the music, as a result rendering it unsuited for the movie it was written for - shouldn´t that be avoided?

Therapy

Medicating the aformentionend patients in critical condition for symptoms of 'Loudness War' is not easy and involves spending some time with them in order to ease their suffering. Therapy consists of a lot of research and also bears the risk of hurting them even further by destroying their data integrity. Naturally, another risk is the possibility of prescribing the wrong medicine. Of equally high importance is the amount of medicine to be dosed - too much of the treatment might destroy the subjects' sonic character, e.g. render it even more unrecognizable than before. Nevertheless, treatments so far available are:

• ReplayGain as a starting point
• declipping (for example with iZotope's DeClipper)
• ReLife (Terry West Productions)
• re-processing individual channels for battling stage symptoms (for example PLParEQ)
• re-equalization (for example with iZotope's Ozone)
• repairing stereo field with multiband stereo imaging (iZotope Ozone again)

As you can guess those treatments are extremely expensive. Luckily, not all of them need to be administered in every case. Physicians may therefore apply treatment as they deem necessary after extensive study of the patients' medical condition. A few examples of successful cases are presented as follows:

Remember Subject 4 ('Salt') - before treatment

Subject 4 after treatment

As you can see above on the before treatment / after treatment charts, Subject 4 has been eased of its pain: Amplficiation of frequencies around 11.000 Hz has been reduced considerably as well as the overbearing bass response while mids and presence area have been strengthened. The therapy also got rid of the effects of brickwall limiting by eliminating it completely. All in all, I can say that treatment has been a success - people listening to Subject 4 aren´t complaining anymore of headaches or bleeding ears, they now are actually able to recognize the music in a non-fatiguing way.

Subject 2 ('The Dark Knight Rises') before treatment

Subject 2 after treatment

The same is valid for Subject 2. You can see how much the overpowering, 'droning' bass has been reduced, as a result presenting sonic colours for the first time. Mids around 1.000 Hz have been strengthened, the same goes for higher frequencies at roughly 4.800 Hz. The amount of amplifications at 3.000 Hz has been straightened out as well. Sadly, the symptoms for Brickwall limiting (not pictured) couldn´t be rectified completely but at least ReLife was successful in easing them greatly.

Conclusions & Opinion

I called this article "The Need to Panic: the disease 'Loudness War' is spreading". You, my beloved constant reader, might think that I´m exaggerating. You might look at the charts and think "The differences look tiny to me, they can´t be as bad as described." Should that be the case I have to tell you that you´re mistaken. While these pictures don´t look like much they contain a powerful statement: gain differences for several frequency bands between 'ill' releases and 'cured' releases happen to be as big as +/- 10 dB (for example on 'Salt' ). Additionally, the effect of transients with natural dynamic can make a difference like night and day. For subjects like 'The Avengers' or 'The Bourne Legacy' the effect of sound being not differentiated may not be that apparent - on subjects like 'The Dark Knight Rises' or 'Salt' they indeed are easily recognizable and they of all are in desperate need of being cured. If I´m extrapolating the examples given here to the entire soundtrack market it leaves us with 50% of all scores sounding well enough while the other 50% are nothing more than distorted audio garbage sounding like a Wax cylinder from 1909.

Most of the time that crap (sorry) is unleashed to the public by the big majors (--> Sony, Universal, EMI) while smaller and independent labels like Intrada or LaLaLand generally are releasing the "good", unaffected half (with some exceptions). Just for the sake of argument let´s expand this situation further into the even bigger market of mainstream releases. How can people treat 'Loudness War' affected releases with respect if even their creators won´t? What if not only filesharers were responsible as it is so often stated by the music industry? What if the 'Loudness War' had an effect too? This would be quite ironic: cranking up the volume was done in order to boost sales and not for the opposite to happen. Is it just a coincidence that sales degenerated at the same time when music got extremely loud? The big labels won´t finance research into that matter - regarding every consumer as a potential thief is much cheaper and easier. (A Sidenote: I´m not defending filesharers here - but that argument alone is insufficient). Furthermore, trying not to make music louder would require balls, something those managers or financial advisors seem to lack considering the absence of daring decisions. I can tell you this though: I have stopped buying mainstream releases because they sound like shit. I´m not even downloading them illegally. While they might be available for free at some place on the net they still sound like shit. I can also promise you that I will stop buying score releases coming from major lables if their sound quality continues to be as bad as it is now, they are a disgrace to the technical possibilities the CD offers and I won´t accept music that has been destroyed on purpose. Right now I´m buying roughly 70 CDs, SACDs or digital downloads every year (not even including DVD's or BluRay's), most of them being scores and classical music - but I cannot guarantee that this will continue indefinetely.

Enough with the ranting. I could go on and talk about mastering engineers saying "No" to 'Loudness War' even if that would mean getting fewer assignments. As you can see above they are complaning - but are they doing something about it? You may remember the statement from ME Bob Ludwig; considering his opinion it's surprising that he continues to expose music to the disease by cranking up the volume using the excuse of "The customer won´t accept anything else." If he would be true to his word he´d stop taking on those assignments. To be fair to him and others: I´m not sure if I wouldn´t behave like them if I were in their shoes; it´s easy to see oneself as a victim instead of an accomplice - and I have been a victim of my own bigotry in the past too. Anyway, this situation has to stop. An orchestra - not even one augmented by synthesized sound elements - cannot be treated as the next best Pop music release and I just don´t have the patience to 'cure' their diseases. I consciously know about this and can subsequently try to get rid of it - but what about the tens of thousand other people being unaware? They simply stop buying these releases. So I urge the people in charge to act now before you´re broke.

Sources:

experience and 'The Loudness War: Background, Speculations and Recommendations',
Earl Vickers, ST Microelectronics, first released at the 129th AES Convention, 2010

Last update: 16.07.2013