Tomas Chlebek Spotify joins streaming services that lower the overall volume of songs. This can greatly contribute to the fight against modern music without dynamic range.
The three most common methods of loudness measurement are currently dBFS, RMS and LUFS. While dBFS shows the peak volume of a given sound wave, RMS is a bit closer to human perception as it shows the average volume. LUFS should reflect human perception most faithfully, as it gives more weight to frequencies to which the human ear is more sensitive, i.e. medium and higher (from 2 kHz). It also takes into account the dynamic range of the sound, i.e. the differences between the loudest and quietest parts of the sound wave.
The LUFS unit was established in 2011 as one of the standards of the European Broadcasting Union, an association of radio and television stations with members from 51 countries and outside Europe. The purpose of the new unit was to use it to establish television and radio loudness standards, with the main motivation being large differences in loudness between programs and commercials, for example. A maximum volume of -23 LUFS was established as the new standard.
Of course, radio is a minority source of music today, and streaming services and online music stores are more important for the reference volume for which music is created. Therefore, it is significant that lower values were measured on a large sample of songs from Spotify in May than before. Decreased from -11 LUFS to -14 LUFS.
Spotify was the loudest streaming service until now, but now the numbers are closing in on competition in the form of YouTube (-13 LUFS), Tidal (-14 LUFS) and Apple Music (-16 LUFS). This across-the-board reduction and leveling of volume across entire music libraries should significantly impact one of the worst trends in music production over the past few decades - loudness wars (volume wars).
The main problem of loudness wars lies in excessive compression and reduction of dynamic range, i.e. equalizing the volume between quieter and louder passages of the song. Since when exceeding a certain volume during mixing (determining the volume ratios between individual instruments and influencing the character of their sound as a space, etc.) sound distortion would occur, compression is a way to artificially increase the perceived volume without the need to increase the real volume.
Music edited in this way attracts more attention on the radio, TV, streaming services, etc. The problem of excessive compression is primarily the constantly loud music tiring the hearing and the mind, in which even an otherwise interesting mix can be lost. In extreme cases, distortion can still appear when trying to achieve the most expressive volume perception during mastering.
Not only are initially quieter passages unnaturally loud (a single acoustic guitar is as loud as the whole band), but even passages that would otherwise stand out lose their impact and organic character. This is most noticeable when compression is done to match louder passages to quieter ones and then increase the overall volume. It is even possible that the composition has a relatively good dynamic range, but the sounds that would otherwise come out of the mix (transients - the beginnings of notes, when the volume rises sharply and decreases similarly sharply, then recedes more slowly), are "cut off" and on their only the distortion caused by the artificial reduction of the sound wave is present.
Probably the most famous example of the consequences of loudness wars is the album Death magnetic by Metallica, whose CD version caused a stir in the music world, especially compared to the album version that later appeared in the game Guitar Hero, was not nearly as heavily compressed and contained much less distortion, see video.
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/DRyIACDCc1I” width=”640″]
Since LUFS takes into account dynamic range and not just peak volume, a track with a higher dynamic range can have significantly louder moments than a heavily compressed track and still maintain the same LUFS value. This means that a song prepared for -14 LUFS on Spotify will be unchanged, while an apparently much louder compressed song will be significantly muted, see images below.
In addition to volume reduction across the board, Spotify also has a volume normalization function enabled by default - on iOS it can be found in playback settings under "normalize volume" and on desktop in advanced settings. The same feature (just called Audio Check) was supposed to be one of the major ways to combat extremely compressed music in iTunes, where it can be turned on and off (iTunes > Preferences > Playback > Sound Check; in iOS Settings > Music > Equalize Volume) and in iTunes Radio launched in 2013 where it was one of the features of the service and the user had no option to turn it off.
Is low dynamic range always just a commercial decision?
The possible end of the loudness war has been talked about a lot, and it only started recently after the label started to be used in the first place. It seems that this should be desirable for listeners, as they will be able to enjoy music with a greater dynamic range and a more complex sound without the distortion caused by extreme compression. It is questionable how much the loudness wars influenced the development of modern genres, but in any case, for many of them dense sound with a small dynamic range is a specific characteristic rather than an undesirable anomaly.
You don't even need to look at extreme genres, even a lot of hip-hop and popular music relies on punchy beats and constant volume levels. For example, an album Jesus Kanye West uses extreme sound as his aesthetic, and at the same time, he does not aim at all to initially engage the listeners - on the contrary, it is one of the least accessible projects of the rapper. For projects like this, the normalization and volume reduction could be considered, if not necessarily intentional, but still a kind of restriction of creative freedom.
On the other hand, the ultimate volume control is still in the hands of the listener on their particular device, and the need to turn up the volume a bit for some specific music projects for the potential to improve the sound quality of a music production in general doesn't seem like too much of a toll.
This is a very nice article! True and technical. Good work!
I'll admit without torture that I skimmed it pretty quickly, but I'm not really sure if I'm getting it right.
Should I turn off the automatic volume control everywhere, because otherwise what I listen to will be distorted?
Currently we have it because some performers are very loud and others are quiet and they are trying to reach an average volume?
Distortion will occur in the sense that some tracks may be muted, while others may be amplified. At least with Apple, it shouldn't affect the quality of the recording itself.
You can say that.
And why not Apple?
Because a successful "mastering engineer" (Bob Katz) tried it (independently of Apple, of course) and said they do it well :-)
Aha
I don't like being silenced and amplified like that. The distortion and, above all, the brutal cropping of the video is really terrible! That's really a change of listening. Lately, I have a problem that all music seems to me to be so far-fetched without any significant changes. I thought it was just shit music. However, if they can do it in the service, then that's good.
The distortion you refer to is caused by excessive compression during mastering, i.e. before the music reaches the media/internet/etc. I'm not aware of streaming services compressing music in this way when normalizing volume, although it does occasionally happen on radio. Rather, the point of silencing should be to encourage a greater dynamic range of the released recordings.
And is it currently better to turn off volume equalization in Spotify, or is it the same as with Apple?
I recommend an older article, a bit longer and with more chapters:
http://diit.cz/clanek/road-to-hell-aneb-jak-vydavatele-poskozuji-technickou-kvalitu-hudby/36091
Thanks, I definitely understood better, I don't know if it's because I read more carefully, or because of the description :-)
This probably doesn't belong here, but I'd be interested in your opinion. Some iTunes movies have dialogue drowned out by background music. Is this normal or am I already experiencing deafness. Retirement at the door?
I'm probably stupid, but should I turn off or on the volume leveling?
That's up to you :-) ...if I'm not mistaken, it should only affect the volume, not the dynamic range or other properties of the music.
If someone listens to music on an iPhone or Beats products, they may not care, neither of them can reproduce the original recordings faithfully even on their own. Beats are a parody of headphones, this also applies to the top lines, BOSE/B&OBeoplay will provide a far better service for the same money, and Koss/Sennheiser for wired ones. The best Libratone or Audeze Lightning headphones still cannot match the reproduction quality of headphones with a 3.5mm jack that are a third cheaper. The Audeze are comparable to the average offered by Samsung with 24-bit DAC in its phones, the DAC in Sony's Xperia Z and XZ series is much better. Music phones like V11/V20/G6/Axon have not yet been surpassed, even the worst music-focused phones like Lenovo A7010 or Marshall London got at least the basic Wolfson WM8281, the still low-cost Vibe X3 has a combination of OPA1612+Sabre 9018C2M, no iPhone with lightning the headphones can't equal even a hint. Wireles codec for iOS is not much even compared to older BT4.x in combination with SBC, BT5.0 + Aptx oder LDAP moves miles ahead of iPhone 7.
I wouldn't recommend Koss for good listening, because their burnt bass and treble cover 1/2 of the sound. And the difference in the dynamic range (therefore less tired ears, etc.) you also know on those shitty Beats... :)
Koss The Plug, Porta Pro and Marley Positive Vibration are the best headphones under a thousand... it depends on what you listen to, for a certain kind of "music" the UR20 is suitable, even if they do not have neodymium magnets. Beats for 8 liters may have the same driver diameter as Porta Pro for a liter, but the Ports are still better to listen to, even if the monkeys with lollipop and Shakira in the playlist may not admit it. :/
In my opinion, the ports are really terrible, but Koss is still better than some packaged gems. I was thinking about the combination of "faithfully reproduce the original recordings" and Koss, it doesn't go well together :)
You can also buy something from Sennheiser for around a liter and I have a much more balanced characteristic
The ports are excellent for the price and no one will tell me about them, I don't use them for listening myself, I spread awareness through discussions, because in the price of the Port, except for the Marley Positive Vibrations, everything is s**t.
People are able to listen to music on the Marshall Major II, these are scary hearing aids. :) That's why I recommend Senn for the wire as well for the more experienced and smarter, and wireless in the Beatshnoje price, I prefer Bose/Beoplay. You can find wireless hearing aids with good performance for a lot of MEElectronics Matrix2, people will continue to buy Marshall Major II BT from Datart instead of usable hearing aids.
How about the Vsonic GR07?
I got auto-banned by jager and becher because I repeatedly corrected typos in the text... so I'll try to share it again:
I write numbers in the text to avoid the autoban (respect)
I don't know them and have never 88 had the opportunity to have them in 77 my ears... notes:
1) Don't believe a word of František Bín, he goes for the money, he pushes incredible garbage in his reviews like // mid-class headphones, on the other hand, the reviews of mid-end personal players with a better DAC are balanced, there even if he allows himself to be bribed, those players 90 he practically cannot gossip because there is not much space, everyone would laugh at him. :)
2) Otík Šéne from HN tries to be objective in his headphone reviews, but every review is subjective either because of hearing limitations or because the stupid editors 43 listen to whatever they want on it, when they are not describing directly from foreign websites. What I appreciate about Otík is that he has listened to two songs: Smetana and Metallica, he writes reviews based on 67 listens from a low-end music player/iPhone, he can give good advice from the point of view of an ordinary consumer.
I would choose the RHA T20i for myself, look at amazon de and ebay com, you will get a similar price of 76 as Vsonic, roughly half the price of the T20i in CZ eshops. :)
3) In foreign HiFi ezines and magazines, bribes are paid like crazy, local editors copy foreign texts, most of the local 1992 editors have not even minimal professional education, hearing, competence, nothing. 89 It may sound old-fashioned, but try to write a review of an amplifier if you don't know the basics of electronics, you've never built a transiwatt tw 40, you don't open the cover of the junction box, you can't type (Y is correct) the quality of the components. An experienced editor immediately sees what is in front of him after removing the lid and listening either confirms the guess or summarizes that the engineers failed to use the potential of hw.
4) If you step back from the design requirements, for 20 thousand CZK you can buy a listening set at home that is equivalent to three or five times more expensive components, but you have to know what you want, do not choose a receiver with DLNA/AirPlay support and connect these technologies line-in like an external box that you can buy on eBay for a few thousand.
5) I don't know how in the AppStore, I have an app for testing the range of hearing on the XZ, if you connect the appropriate headphones, you can easily test your range.
6) If someone wanted to be persuaded to 66 Kossy, two or three pieces of advice:
shop on eBay 8879
768 have US models shipped
a smart choice is historical pieces, 456 which occasionally appears
I'll see what I can find. I don't have headphones right now. I had the GR07's and bought them because of the review and it worked fine before a pig ate them.
I'm listening to Dead Can Dance on it, so it could also play and you can probably tell the differences.
why do you call the marshall major ii scary headphones?
They play like balls for 69,- from Sapa.
The person who praises the ports then says that the MM II I play like a rock for 69... I've had the MM for three years and a half a year, the sound is three times better, the prices are comparable to the porta pro
It's just that you don't have it, MM II is a hoax for stupid people, Ports play many times better. MM are not applicable to metal either. If you bought the Marley Positive Vibrations instead of the MM, you would also enjoy a better sound than with the noise pad, the MM sound almost as bad as most of the Beats model line.
Beats are overpriced headphones that are just as loud. Otherwise, I don't agree with you, I have both ports and mm II at home. I listened through my sony discman and in all price categories it plays well. Either you tested the faulty mm II on mp3 with 128 bitrate or you are the one who got ripped off..
Congrats on rediscovering discman :) I'm listening to a high-performance 32bit DAC with a high-impedance preamp and higher output voltage than you'll find on most pocket-sized consumer electronics. You don't have to worry about the quality of the source or the origin of the recordings. I am of the generation that has an archive of LP records at home. I built my own Transiwatt TW40 in my 20s.
BTW the discman, like most walkmans has a very weak output. Nothing can be compared with it, so definitely not without a headphone amplifier, a meaningful one will cost about 10 times the price of the new MMII ergo, if I didn't want to have fun with a child whose mom or dad made him happy, I would write that you first get at least a mid-end dedicated player.
It's a fact that listening to the MMII evokes the rattling sensation familiar from listening to the first MPEG-3 mp1s converted from .wav in 94 on a studio Pentium 75, even though we used a SoundBlaster 32 for listening. :P
MMIIs are more like an "internal speaker" on an XT286 PC.
Honestly, if you connect them to an iPhone, it doesn't really matter because listening on an iPhone can't be enjoyed, let alone enjoyed. It is average for undemanding people, even the proprietary DAC from Qualcomm in the Snap820 can conjure up a much better musical experience. The old Lenovo A7010 Pro is more suitable for listening to music than the iPhone.
I can't predict when the degradation of music on the iPhone will end, I just hope that one day Apple will introduce an iPhone "pro" that can satisfy even listeners who want more than listening to a record of the hit parade from the FM radio on an MC cassette in digital form.
An iPhone with a quality DAC (something on par with SABER ES9018K2M, ES9018/9218, ES9601, E9016, E9602, TI OPA1612) instead of noname/Cirrus Logic for half a penny and a better camera that could at least match the three year old competition in the form of the IMX220 and 1/2.4″ with the appropriate resolution and high-quality optics will be introduced by Apple in five years at the earliest, and who knows if, but by then all the main competitors will be another five to seven years ahead of the iPhone.
The dumber will buy an iPhone + MMII, the smarter will buy an LG V10 with a new battery in the bazaar, a new V10 for a third of the price on eBay, refurbished for half of what it is in CZ bazaars + BOSE QC35, BeoPlay H8, Senn Momentum, Urbanite or Koss Porta Pro from USA. :) For a music phone, in addition to hires recordings, you have to buy an adequate player on the Play Store that can activate a dedicated amplifier (normally it runs on proprietary Qualcomm) or download an enabler from the forum.
I definitely do not recommend Pory, around 1000 used to be Sennheiser PX 100, incomparably better sound.
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