Are the loudness wars over?*

Yes exactly. It's all about headphone listening, which is how most people consume music now. The mastering has to be less dynamic to avoid hearing damage. So, kill streaming and there might be an end to the "war"...

 

I heard the new Queens Of The Stone Age album in my car yesterday.
Definitely not!!!

 

Those DRs are an utter disgrace, no one should pay anything for that crap. If you can bear listening to what must be a dirge, don't pay for it, download it for free.

 

Nah... Alice In Chains' Dirt was noticeably louder before that.

 

A two DR was there! I think 8DR average for a record is decent nowadays. I would rather 10dr was the min but ya know.

Now that's a question what records that are 8 or so would you deem sound wise listenable?

 

Let me do some speculations/conspiracy (a war without conspiracy is just a mere battle..

The loudness war started somewhere in the end of 90's, when the lossy formats became the preferred format for the young people to listen music on their PCs. Gradually the lossy formats started to rule the market, and every new mainstream release was mastered louder, bass heavy and compressed (because when the music is loud, compressed and bass heavy, the difference between the lossy and lossless is almost undetectable). Of course the reissues of older music followed the trend.

Now we are in the beginning of a new era - the technology advanced greatly, so already (and even more in the very near future) there's high speed internet capable of smooth real time streaming of big files, and also the storage is less than an issue anymore, so the lossy format will fade away, and hi-rez download and streaming will become the next common way for music listening . And I think that in order the companies to promote and sell hi-rez to the general audience, they have to do some valid claim why it is better, and to demonstrate it. So I expect that the new fashion in mastering could be exploring the full capabilities of the medium (similar to what was done when the CD was introduced), and hopefully the focus will be the dynamic range capabilities, transparency and quality of sound, with layers of details present without heavy bass domination, etc. - "music as you never heard it before"

I even suspect that the recent fashion the physical digital formats to be unnecessarily crippled (there's no any valid explanation why today a CD of a new release have to be more compressed compared to the vinyl edition of the same title, made from thee same files) is connected to this - in few years the labels can present the same material in full range, uncompressed, on hi-rez streaming platforms, and to make you hear the difference - "the new hi-rez streaming and downloading beats not only the lossy files, but also your CD's and Blu Rays and DVDs"

So may be we are now in the last bloody stage of the loudness war, and the quiet peace and harmony is near..

 

OP: Yes, they won, we lost.

 

The war is over. We lost. A long time ago.

 

Yeah true, tho doesn't film try to do something similar with super HD and it's such a small market.

Maybe there are more audiophiles than I think there are but I always find the general public as long as they can get it quick and easy they don't care much.

I do hope your right. If the labels can convince hipsters to buy vinyl they don't play I am sure they can convince them to buy Hi- Res

 

Well - using J.River Media Center - I routinely apply volume leveling (R128) to every track I have. Listening to any of my music on the iPod/iPhone/iPad in any environment guarantees identical levels across any mix.

I have tons of playlists with DR12 mixed with DR7's. You would be hard pressed to tell any difference in loudness.

VP

 

The article doesn't claim this will restore dynamic range. The move is meant to serve as a deterrent against the competitive use of brickwall mastering, as it will only backfire on those that employ it.

"By reducing the LUFS index, Spotify is telling the music industry that there's no use in trying to sound louder than everyone else. Everything that comes into the platform will sound and be on the same level."
"If you have a very compressed audio, it will get smaller because of the lack of dynamics," explains Costa. "When you lower the loudness of that sound, you have the feeling that it plays much lower."
"In other words, the songs with loudness above -14 LUFS sounds lower on Spotify compared to those that have been compressed below the magic number."

It may not solve the problem completely, but it may eventually result in a return to better mastering practices if the competitive motivation is eliminated.

 

That would be nice but while some recent re-releases of classic albums have finally enjoyed good mastering, all too many unfortunately still get brickwalled.

 

It's over. Hypercompression won.
Now all audiophiles are prisoners surrounded by a huge brickwall.

 

In 2012, Lillian Axe released XI: The Days Before Tomorrow which is DR8 and I find it listenable, and a great album by a a very underrated band. I wish it was a DR10+ but it has a good and relatively warm sound for something that isn't a DR10+.

 

Higher DR levels have steeper transients. Unless your algorithm is actually compressing the song, essentially remixing it, the effect I described is exactly what will happen. Which is why we have so many DR6 amd DR7 products.

 

I'd like 10+ db of DR on every album as much as anybody, but honestly I just don't worry about it much anymore. It is possible to get good sound from a cd with DR5.

 

The only way to enter the charts is to have a loud and dynamically compressed album,
example: Steven Wilson "To the Bone"..

 

This is why I think it's shameful for bands that have clout and influence to release brickwalled music. And then have the nerve to say it's an artistic decision! They might have turned the tide.
I mean, David Bowie did it, but not everyone is David Bowie.

 

Wait. Are you defending Bowie? Because Blackstar sounds awfully compressed

 

I'm just saying Bowie can get away with a lot of things, because he's Bowie. At least Blackstar came during the vinyl revival when people had somewhat of a choice. It's the early 2000s albums that really suffered.

 

It really is that simple. Don't know why our fellow members can't fathom that.

 

Well said

 

If you want dynamic range these days it's all in video games and Netflix series. Seriously, try watching The Defenders at night when your six year old is sleeping

 

or you can listen to old music, anything up to '94, sounds spectacular, in any format, and musically is better too..

 

Have you heard Blackstar? There is little to no dynamic range.