CDs Mastered With the Volume too Low

Excellent album! I've never noticed it being unusually quiet, but then I remember many quiet CDs being too loud through most amps back in the mid eighties.

 

First time I had ever noticed a cd with the sound too low is when I bought The Oak Ridge Boys Greatest Hits Volume 2. Ridiculous that someone thought it was acceptable to sell like that.

 

I've just got a cheap all-in-one CD changer, FM stereo and aux unit and I've noticed most so-called brickwalled CDs sound just fine on it but early CDs (pre-remaster mid-90s era) are extremely quiet on it. I normally keep the volume at about 18-20 but on CDs like In My Tribe I have to turn it up to 25 to even come close to the same volume level.

 

Good thing there's replay gain and you don't have to worry about any of this...

 

The first CD pressings of Pink Floyd The Wall.

 

Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates
Ry Cooder - Bop Til You Drop
Randy Newman - Trouble In Paradise

Of course loud mastering is not good either, but at least make it loud enough to make it audible on an mp3 player or discman.

 

I don't have an issue with them on the home stereo, however I found when I played them on the Ipod with headphones....if I was out and about often the outside noise was still louder than the music - even when it was up high volume.

The of course you make a compilation of tracks and they go from very quiet (old CDs) to very loud (new CD's)

 

For a proper job you need iVolume

 

Well, it depends on the level of noise. Anyhow, noise doesn't bother me much.

 

Ah yes another thread of a hatred. Those who like Dynamic lifelike sound lost the war, that is well established.

 

ChangesOneBowie RCA JPN for US. Actually have to use another media player on my computer that lets you crank the volume louder than max to hear it properly. I wondered why it was up for sale for just over $6 and I mainly only bought it cause my RCA Young Americans didn't have the full title track intact so I bought ChangesOneBowie for the title track. WAY too quiet

 

It might be an annoyance, but it can be easily corrected.

 

Kenny Rogers Eyes That See In The Dark RCA CD is very quiet, great sound

 

More than happy with my old US FM-Mirage with levels at an all time low

 

Well to be fair, not everyone has a capable enough amp.

Why? Are you afraid you’ll sprain your wrist? Does it cause you anxiety to see your volume knob past 10 o’clock?

This is a legit complaint (ameliorated by audio editors/volume levelers as others have noted), but one should keep in mind these cds were mastered before iPods existed. Even car/portable CD players were not common then. It was presumed you’d be playing them on a proper stereo.

Yeah, I see a lot of forum favorite masterings getting griped about here. To each their own.

 

Fair enough, I believe I've never turned my volume knob past 5 on it's 10 grade scale, I don't think my speakers, nor neighbours, would like it

 

If you get another amp you could turn it up to 11.

 

I always thought having to amp up the, erm, amp on recordings was a good thing. Practically all my vinyl has to be turned up significantly to get anything decent out of it, so I never minded that CDs (back then) were the same..

 

It's not a problem...the problem is if you don't have an audio editor software, volume button on your stereo or use a cellphone playback software without a leveling function or whatever it's called.

 

I dunno why it should be them specifically, but A&M's 80s CDs have a frequent tendency to be tinny and lack bass frequencies compared to the original LPs. I particularly noticed this with the original CD of Joe Jackson's Look Sharp. It's not limited to archive material either, as Gregg Alexander's Michigan Rain, an album that was released on CD as a new release, suffers from it too. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if you master below a certain level you actually lose some of the low frequencies, or at least, amplifying them will create an artificial sound.

Another CD where the original CD sounds distinctly different from the original LP is Simple Minds' Life In A Day. The original LP had quite a crunchy punk sound, and the CD sounds muted in comparison. The 2002 remaster is actually better in this case, but being compressed and (possibly) noise reduced, still doesn't quite sound as good as the LP.

 

That is very low in volume, the same tracks on the Gold 2 CD set are mastered at a little louder level and this Gold set is not a loudness war ordeal either.

 

Rick Wakeman "Criminal Record" first Japan pressing. Very low levels but sounds pretty good cranked up (bested by the Hip-O repress).

-s1m0n-

 

Real Gone Music has also reissued this and their reissue is also OOP.

 

The A&M and Myrrh CD mastering of Amy Grant's Unguarded is also very quietly leveled whereas I have tried tracks from the remaster (I have the Greatest Hits CD taken from the Sparrow remasters) and the remaster is a loudness war ordeal. The older CD mastering is better and cranking up the volume helps. The vinyl LP is even better yet, not a night and day difference over the older CD, but still better sounding.

 

Stuff that's recorded too low is throwing bits away. Instead of 16 bits you are effectively only using 12 or 13. Surely audiophiles can understand the problem with this.