The loudness war

[jetpig]

The loudness war is a term given to the trend of recrods to be mixed louder and louder with less and less dynamic range, bleeding out nuance in quiet parts of recordings. Among audiophiles and audio enthusiasts it's generally regarded as a bad thing that's done specifically for average end consumers in their cars. A higher dynamic range (that is more distance between the loud and quiet sounds) is a good thing. Makes the whole album sound quieter, but allows for more detail in the recording. I found this site that compares many many different recordings and their dynamic range and, lo and behold, underworld is listed! http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=underworld&search_album=

AHDO and OWB aren't listed, barking is taken with a lossy file structure, so i'm not considering it as valid. The DAT compilation is listed, surprisingly, as well. The 1992-2002 compilation discs are by far the worst offenders, with BF bringing up second (with barking removed). I'm curious how much of the final mastering is done out of house and how much is done by Rick.

edit: Doing a quick comparison to others (orbital, amon tobin) even barking is better than most.