vi-R-us

CDs are now engineered to be extremely loud. Sound quality suffers. This brief video shows the “before and after” effects of industry standard post-recording processing. It’s extremely disturbing what it does to your music.

The general term for this is “Dynamic Range Compression” and actually it has nothing to do with MP3 or AAC data compression. It is not done much on classical music, because the dynamics are so much more vital and noticeable, but it is widely used for popular.

This is a nice example of how product ‘optimisation’ degrades the actual product itself. it makes me think of big, fat, shiny, perfectly formed apples that taste horribly bland. We’re all weak and our judgment is terrible and based on some easily exploitable blind spots. We’re destined for a life of seductive shiny blandness because that’s what we’ve expressed a preference for.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 5:28 pm and is filed under INTERESTING, PAY MY DISRESPECTS, THOUGHT CORNER. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.