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Drew 
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 Topic: CD Volume Question
Posted: March 06 2008 at 23:47 |
OK- sometimes when I'm in my car a certain CD on my radio will be at volume 25 or so- which is a good listening volume- and so today I pop in "The Rainmaker" by the Flower Kings and I have the volume at 45- significantly higher- and the volume seems about the same  Do certain CD's put out more sound than others? Just curious....
Edited by Drew - March 06 2008 at 23:48
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Petrovsk Mizinski
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 01:02 |
Different album were mixed and engineered differently, so of course, volume levels, equalisation, compression levels etc etc, vary. I tend to find when I play The remastered version of Megadeth's Rust In Peace, then go to say, Metallica's Ride The Lightning, to get the same volume as RIP, I have to increase it by a few decibels.
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oliverstoned
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 03:15 |
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Yes, there are dramatic differences of level from one record to another.
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Dean
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 04:54 |
It's down to the difference between the average volume level (actually the RMS level) and the Peak volume level. The peaks represent sharp bursts, like cymbal crashes, where as the average sound level is the rest of the music.
Most music on CD will peak at 0dB (ie the loudest sound that can be recorded on the CD) but how "loud" it sounds to you is represented by the average level. Compression (and to some extent Equalisation) boosts the average while compressing the peaks so the average sounds louder, but at the expense of the dynamic range of the music (ie quiet passages are now relatively louder)
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Man Erg
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 05:18 |
So,do lengthy cd's suffer the same fate as lengthy vinyl records?
When vinyl records were approximately over,let's say 50 minutes,the track bandwidths were compressed to make room for more music to be held on one disc.
The same seem(ed)s to be the case for cds,especially in the early-ish days of the medium.The more space taken up on one disc,the more inferior the sound.
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Do 'The Stanley' otherwise I'll thrash you with some rhubarb.
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Dean
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 05:23 |
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^ no, the length of a CD remains constant, music on CD is not time compressed like mp3s are (they are .wav files), The compression is on volume, so only relative loudness that is affected... digitally, 80 minutes of silence is the same amount of data as 80 minutes of Metallica.
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Chicapah
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 08:50 |
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It happens even more often on classical recordings and it is a real pain in the butt.
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"Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value" - Mark Twain
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Dean
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 09:01 |
I wish all CDs were mastered uncompressed, as they were recorded, so we get to hear what the artist and producers heard when they made it. Compression is distortion, it affects the fidelity of the signal.
One of the big selling points of CD when it was first introduced was the huge dynamic range over vinyl (over 96dB difference between quiet and loud compared to 60dB for vinyl), yet what we buy is so compressed the dynamic range is now worse than vinyl.
My amplifier has a volume control that I can use to make the music sound louder, I do not need to have them "doctored" to make them sound louder.
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Nightfly
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Posted: March 07 2008 at 11:51 |
 darqDean wrote:
I wish all CDs were mastered uncompressed, as they were recorded, so we get to hear what the artist and producers heard when they made it. Compression is distortion, it affects the fidelity of the signal.
One of the big selling points of CD when it was first introduced was the huge dynamic range over vinyl (over 96dB difference between quiet and loud compared to 60dB for vinyl), yet what we buy is so compressed the dynamic range is now worse than vinyl.
My amplifier has a volume control that I can use to make the music sound louder, I do not need to have them "doctored" to make them sound louder.
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Exactly! I rarely have my amp volume higher than a quarter of the way round. All this compression is totally unnecessary and destroys the original recording in many cases. I can understand how it may be beneficial in Dance records designed for clubs etc but dynamics are an important part of many forms of music Prog included which compression levels off to a certain extent.
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Drew
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Posted: March 09 2008 at 03:29 |
Thanks guys 
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CD Volume Question
