From: mike 


Another aspect of all this.

Radio stations do a similar thing, i.e., compress the dynamic range of the
music, in order to sound "louder".  Before CDs, there was a limit
to how much compression they could use because of the rumble and other
assorted noises associated with vinyl albums in high usage patterns.

When radio stations started to use CDs, I thought to myself, ahhhh... all
that background noise is going to go away.   In reality, what
happened is that the radio stations turned up the dynamic range compression
even more because now they were not raising the level of the clicks, pops
and other vinyl noises to a more audible level.  So the result of the lower
background noise of CDs was a very noticeable increase in the dynamic range
compression of radio stations.

There was one FM station in NYC WPLJ (95.5, the old WABC-FM) that used so
much compression that the VU meter needles on my reel-to-reel recorder
barely moved for minutes at a time.  I could place them at 0dB and they
would just vibrate within a range of a couple of dB's, even through
commercials and song announcing.

It is sad.

 /m


On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 11:00:21 -0600, "Glenn Meadows"
 wrote:

>And, unfortunately, the dynamic range capability of CD is gone, simply by
>production techniques, in trying to fit everything into the top 6-10 db of
>the possible dynamic range.
>
>It will ONLY change if the consumers keep returning CD's complaining about
>the quality.
>
>Stranger things have happened though.
>
>We've been complaining about this for close to 12 years now, but it just
>gets worse.

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