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What does "compressed" sound like?


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What does "compressed" sound like?

Well, the trite yet true answer is that it depends on the compressor.

I'd wager that 99% of the music adored by members of this forum would be absolutely unlistenable without considerable dynamic range manipulation.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Rip Rowan is right on about this recording. I love Rush, but Vapor Trails sounds like total crap. This is hands down the worst sounding cd I have. The production is just plain awful. I would guess that this would be a good example of a compressed recording. And just like Rip says " it's to loud". To bad about the sound on this album as it is Rush's best collection of songs since 1983's Signals.

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Peak limiting compression like that article about the Rush example is terrible...

I remember liking Matchbox20 when they first came out in the 90's and got their CD. Just about every song was a good one except that the CD was mixed "louder is better".

I remember thinking it was bad in the car...I tried it on my dad's rig at the time composed of some Martin Logan Re-Quests and a Mark Levinson #336...sounded like pure garbage...white noise. I then took it to my system since At the time I was using an old Phase Linear AC-400 Amp that has LED peak meters on it. They proved to my dispair when I played the CD when they'd just hit the top and stay there. Crazy.

I wish the practice would stop...

Probably my favorite example of a good "quiet" CD is Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms" it's still one of my favorite albums to evaluate audio gear.

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What does "compressed" sound like?

Well, the trite yet true answer is that it depends on the compressor.

I'd wager that 99% of the music adored by members of this forum would be absolutely unlistenable without considerable dynamic range manipulation.

Ditto that...good compression increases intelligibility and really enhanced the liveliness of the music.

Bad compression....well...sucks the life out of the music.

So you have a tool that can either add or take away life. The recent loudness wars have given compression a bad name to the consumer world - and we'll just keep it a secret the massive amounts of compression that go into LP's [;)] (or even any of the typically considered "good recordings")

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