I had worked in consumer audio at a "high end' retail establishment until the late 80's. We had sold a pair of speakers worthy of recording studios to a studio in NYC.
At the time Foreinger was recording "Inside Information" and I heard some of that album right from 96 tracks on ANALOG tape. The engineer at the studio told me I will never hear tis album like this again. The worst thing the Label will do to it is make a cd of it. He was right . Never have I heard such detail in the outside world from a commercial recording ( yes the cd is just loud). We as music consumers are being totally mis lead with what we are sold. Any comments on ,say, Bruce Springsteens latest?
The only thing that remotely helps modern recordings is perhaps going back to an add-on expander. Dust off your DBX
units! (We shouldn't have to,Lord knows the technology can handle little to no compression)

Kevin Heran, Bogota, NJ,

Lets not get carried away and state this problem affects all CDs because it doesn't. However it's just depressing isn't it? As an avid buyer of CDs for years I was shocked at some of what I learned about sound dynamics and compression.

I started collecting digi rips of vinyl just to hear the difference and immediately noticed a quieter sound. And then I adjust the eq volume up through my digi amp and it's glorious. It's still not too loud but I'm hearing everything just perfect. A prime example was a copy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers 'Stadium Arcadium' release. The vinyl is mastered by Steve Hoffman & I can actually pay attention to the great musicianship without being smacked in the face by it.

I knew some of my CDs were loud but I'd no idea that they could sound that much better. What's worrying is I would have been content with my CDs. As an average consumer I have to speak for others...they need to be educated, and bands and engineers need to play a part as well.

Vince, Guildford,

The better my equipment gets, the worse many CDs sound.

I started running the worst sounding albums through a WAV editor to see what they look like... They are completely compressed with no variations, everything is a peak ending at the limits of the noise ceiling (or something close to this). There is no inbetween, just all loudness and clipping on those offending songs.

I'm not buying CDs anymore now, not without downloading a sample of each song and testing it out in the WAV editor to see if I am getting ripped off by the company selling the CD. I want to hear music, not cacophonous garbage.... Ruining a song with too much compression and clipping isn't edgy or cool, it is just stupid. No wonder why people are stealing the music, it isn't worth buying any more at this quality level....

Jeff Kalman, Pound Ridge, NY

Yes I NEVER buy a CD now without first listening to it. It's a bloody rip-off. It's jhust modulated white-noise. Yuk.

Guy Johnson, Haverfordwest, Pembs

Damned right. about the clipping, compression and distortion. I've just blogged something about my next door neighbour who has to have this constant soundtrack to his life (usually house music).

Sadly my terraced place was built in 1900, before the invention of sub-bass boxes and surround sound DVD systems, and the lack of cavity wall and sound insulation can be an issue, to say the least.

Anyway, a bit of googling to try and find some answers brought me to this blog.

Has anyone ever asked precisely *why* we are surrounded by music everywhere?

What's the appeal? What's the psychology behind it? What are the social effects? Should we demand that stores and restaurants need to ask for planning permission before polluting the place with their crappy shop-music? How long before it gets piped into libraries? Why have we, as a society, lost the appreciation of silence and space?

Come on, I expect to see a 3,000-word article on this in next weeks' Times!

dogsolitude_uk, Norwich, Norfolk

It's wonderfully ironic that most R1 material is so loud (and I mean 'loud' rather than 'high volume') that we are are forced to turn down the volume, thus making everything wimpy-loud and rather pathetic. Mastering engineers, however, are not entirely to blame for radio loudness trends (see Katz for discussion).

Good job I prefer classical music then! The glories of that lost ideal known as dynamic range...

James Percival, Nantwich, Cheshire

When presented with two sound levels, humans are inclined towards the louder one. As a result, we are in the midst of the "loudness wars". It's a terrible cyclical issue, since artists want their albums to "compete" - when they listen to rough mixes in the car, if they are not as loud as current albums, they complain bitterly. As a producer, you can argue or you agree and apply hypercompression.

Mastering engineer Bob Ludwig has said that strident over-compression will define the sound of records from this era. Author and mastering engineer Bob Katz writes that the decline of album sales directly mirrors the increase of hypercompression. If there's no sound difference between a CD and an mp3, why pay for the disc?

I like Dave's idea of releasing albums with little or no compression and having a "compress" option on home CD players that would deliver a more aggressive sound if desired by the listener. Compression is essential only in jukeboxes - everyone else has a volume knob

John Merchant, Nashville,

There's so much noise everywhere in society today that many people do not know what noise is. How often I have left restaurants and stores without buying anything because of loud, grating, obnoxious background noise that they call music. I've even visited and not gone back or simply left churches with music that is grating. Music 100 decibels and over destroys hearing, which goes gradually, so people do not realize that hearing loss and the progression to deafness is widespread with people losing their hearing often making the choices about what others hear, and this is too often the case with "sound engineers." I do not want to lose my hearing and sanity. The problem is that people do not realize they are losing their hearing and cannot hear the best range of most instruments. I even carry earplugs with me these days. A formerly favorite show at Disneyland has been utterly ruined for me by blasting distorted sound. There are some record labels where good CDs can be bought such as Rounder Records, Grammophone with the classical. With the equipment with have today, you'd think that sound should improve, but blasting drums, too much bass, has often ruined it. Popular music often sounds the same. What people realize that in the past popular music was not blaring, and many tunes became hits and classics that everyone sang to themselves and still do. Many people going deaf assume that teenagers and young people want it loud, but that is not necessarily the case--that is all they have known. I have a niece in her early 20s who does not like music loud and delights in much of the popular music of the past like the Beatles, Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary plus she likes the more classical music too. As a teenager, she left a prom early with her boyfriends because the music was too loud, and her boyfriend was a percussionist in the high school band who also disliked loud noise and mindless drum beats.

Donna, Orange, USA / CA

Music as a pleasure medium is lost forever - period.

Today’s industry is driven by mindless money dweebs and two generations of people who believe loud compressed lifeless noise played on an iPod is what ‘music’ should be like. They know nothing else having grown up accepting a sub-standard medium and process as ‘normal’ and it’s unfortunate ignorance and iPods (and such) drive the industry.

Here is where I should admit that yes, I have an MP3 player but it’s not used in the house, I play sub-standard formatted music in sub-standard environments like a car.

Much to my torment I know what ‘music’ can be (or was) for I am an analog man in a digital age. I know that the parts inaudible to the human ear that get clipped for mp3’s are the parts you instead ‘feel’.

Here’s a cute story: I have a co-worker who claimed his mp3 collection sounded every bit as good if not better than any music I could play for him from vinyl or a CD. So add 1 Dark Side of The Moon vinyl album, a tub

Karl Weidenbacher, Port Orchard, WA

Enough is enough, I'm fed up with being disappointed with the sound on new CD's. I really think the only thing is to stop buying from the artists and labels that spoil the natural sound of instruments and voices. The sad thing is todays technology could probably produce perfect recordings. Could the hi-fi manufacturers and record labels get together to provide switchable compression, and give the listener the choice? Alternatively could CD's be double sided - one side compression free?

Dave Payne, Sittingbourne, Kent

I am a sound engineer (30 years) specializing in "live" audio. I use no compression on anything. I create the dynamics by moving the sound desk's faders in real time following the dynamics of the music being played. I minimally use echo & reverb to enhance the the feel of the music and vocals. These core values seem to have been perverted in the modern studio setting. I haven't bought a commercial recording in quite a while and now I know why. I mic my drums using only an overhead (AKG D9000 Vocal mic) and a kick drum mic (Shure 52 with an Earthworks kick pad in line). I really think a getting back to basics approach is the way out of this mess.

Jimmy Reynolds, Providence, Rhode Island

"John Mayers album Heavier Things, but that's one of the most terrible clipping albums ......the song "Clarity" ..."
Oh, the irony.

Gordon, Montana,

My ideal world would use compressin on playback, not on the master source. When listening in a noisy environment such as, for example, a car at high speed, you need more compression than you would need in a quiet living room. To play my clasical CDs in the car, I first dub them through a VCR (which supplies compression) and onto a home made CD. Too bad car CD players don't have a compression adjustment.

Dan Fernandes, La Verne, CA

Compressing the peeks, or "limiting" does have the effect of chopping off the tops of the sine waves, thus creating square waves. Most speakers have trouble reproducing square waves and I have yet to see a single CD player reproduce square waves. The end result is distortion, the ONLY thing one can call such an alteration of the original musical waveform. This limiting also destroys much of the dynamic range of the music. Dynamic range is the volume difference between the really quiet soft sounds and the louder sounds you hear in live unamplified music. Only one way to solve the problem: stop buying music thats overly compressed. Return overly compressed CD's to the store where you bought them. We can stop the insanity and save our ears.

Dale B, Kihei, Hawaii

The album Californication by RHCP is a perfect example of how bad it can be. I regret that I didn't return the CD to the record shop and demanded the money back. If Record companies thought the hot sound would boost sales, it was the opposit for me. I didn't dare to buy another RHCP album for well over five years because I was so disappointed.

Jonas, Göteborg, Sweden

This smells a little of an anti-digital, anti-new-music rant, except that I'd have to say some stuff I've bought lately IS tiring to listen to. Have to say though that singling out Arctic Monkeys is quite unfair, it's an aggressive, live-style pub rock, and if your went to hear them in their pre-fame days it's likely they would have sounded even harsher than they do on the CD, it's the appeal of the this particular style.

B&Massa, Hobart, Australia

I've listened to a bunch of movie OSTs on CD and haven't had a problem with them.

On the 'AAD' ones from the pre-CD era you can ACTUALLY hear the tape hiss in soft passages--a tribute to the fidelity of the non-analog CD medium.

On the 'DDD' ones there is little/no noticable evidence of 'tape hiss'.

For THE INCREDIBLES OST, it was DELIBERATELY recorded in analog using 1960s technology and recording techniques for artistic reasons that work well thus making a CD copy of it a bit of an anachronism.

Strangely, I like listening to (well done) electronica where the audio is properly 'stereoized' and doesn't sound like it was produced on a tinny consumer-grade synth from the 1980's.

The first 3 tracks on Vangelis' 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE OST is a GREAT example of electronica done right!

Pro Coder, USA,

@Elliot My mastering engineer (who has mastered Steely Dan, John Mayer, et al) has complained about the record companies' "more loudness=better" for 3 years now. He concurs that lounder does not equal better, and it almost always harms the subtlties of any given product.

I'm don't know if your mastering engineer mastered John Mayers album Heavier Things, but that's one of the most terrible clipping albums I know. Just have a quick listen to the song "Clarity" and see what's going on at 4.00. Not enjoyable at all :(

Mark, Singleton,

Elliotts sentiment may be right, but radio compression IS the same and it DOES sound as bad. The same tools are used - L2 limiters etc, multiband compression and all that jazz. Loudness of CDs is a waste of time, it just makes a lower quality sounding product. The listener still has control of the volume !!

The current levels of loudness in CDs isnt new. Its been going on for at least 7 years and was coming up to these current levels through the nineties. It doesnt make a louder product all it does is make one that is comparitively louder than an older CD. The user still has control of the volume. USE IT!

rich aitken, oxford,

Why not let the consumer decide again?

My wonderful sound system that cost me a whole lot of money can't play to it's fullest potential with these overcompressed crap CDs.

My car stereo has a knob for "ultra mega bass loudness wow effect" that I use when the noise level of my environment go up. But really I have no use for it now, it's already been used on the CD up front.

So basically I have the same sound in my car stereo as before, but I lost the details and nuances on my expensive home sound equipment.

Hurray for the record industry...! *irony hint*

pcguru, Linköping, Sweden

The two types of compression, though they are quite different processes, actually _do_ interact. Compression added in the mastering stage adds non-linearities to the audio signal. If you look at the kinds of clipped waveforms that people are putting out in CDs now, they are much more difficult to represent in mp3 compression. mp3 is much better at representing smooth waveforms. The more distortion and clipping in a source song, the more information it has to remove from the signal in the compression process, and thus the more additional distortion gets introduced.

Tom Meyer, San Francisco,

Californication is a horrible CD to listen to. The amount of buzz makes me to not want to listen to it.

I wish more artists would use Dolby 5.1 to mix their music.

Vincent Clement, Brantford,

I think it's important to note that the majority of this is the result of consumer demand.

No, I do not work in the music industry.

The reason I say t his is that I hear people all the time complaining about their audio system introducing a humming noise when they turn their volume up. Of course, they don't necessarily realize that is because they bought cheap electronics.

The real problem is that with these newer CDs, with the volume increased on CD, the consumer doesn't have to turn the volume up as much to get the same loudness meaning there isn't as much humming from the amplifier. This is the main reason I see for the success of the peak level compression. As long as the consumer can think he is eliminating the amplifier noise by using newer "better" CDs, he'll do it because it's cheaper than buying good audio equipment.

The only real way to fight this is to educate the consumer on audio systems and compression. Then, set an industry standard for dynamic range.

Eric Pratt, West Lafayette, IN

The author confuses data compression with dynamic range compression. The following passage doesn't make sense:

<i>Downloading has exacerbated the effect. Songs are compressed once again into digital files before being sold on iTunes and similar sites.</i>

Michal, Wroclaw,

I egineer and produce recordings with modern equipment, and thought that this article was 50% accurate and the rest a bit confused.
compression at the mixing stage and the different type of compression used at the mastering stage are necessary parts of the process, to use the bandwidth available, bring out the details in the music and generally make it a pleasure to listen to.
The fact that some people have stopped thinking about what they are doing to the sound and being careless with the tools available, is not the tools fault, merely the monkey using it. You can`t ban reverb just cos it was a bit overused in the 80`s!
ban poor engineers with cotten wool in their ears - the technology today makes it easier for the lesser skilled amongst us to claim expert status, but the fact is you need to have the ears to know when to stop the process and say "thats enough - its sweet".
radio stations are partly to blame in pressuring for this, and doing it themselves anyway on top! use ears

Ben, Cardiff,

Addressing the comment that states: 'radio stations have been squashing signals for an apparently 'louder' sound for decades'

Sorry - completely different kind of compression - and it does not cause 'buzzing' as digital does. Digital 'precision' does not have anything to do with tasteful mastering of a musical product!

My mastering engineer (who has mastered Steely Dan, John Mayer, et al) has complained about the record companies' "more loudness=better" for 3 years now. He concurs that lounder does not equal better, and it almost always harms the subtlties of any given product.

Elliott Randall, London,

It wasn't long after the CD was introduced that engineers realised they could push the music to the maximum volume without distortion very easily, more easily than with old analogue techniques using tape and valves. But that couldn't have lasted very long because most pop/rock albums made in the last decade are 'clipped' ie they EXCEED the maximum volume achievable without clipping. Pretty much all the pop music we hear nowadays is deliberately clipped and distorted just for the sake of a few more decibels.

Another problem with clipping is that it doesn't translate well to our new favourite format mp3, because of the way where it chops off even more information than clipping on its own.

Being fully aware of this suicidal trend, our band's new CD is not clipped in the slightest, and is mastered like albums in the good old days, to be played over and over without making you feel like you've being using a road drill.

ViralEssence, SE England, UK

The Rush CD, "Vapor Trails" is by far the worst example of a hot recording with clipping that drives away bugs and shatters windows.

But, the good new is that their new CD "Snakes and Arrows" keeps the waveform mostly within the limits. It's still a little hot for my tastes, but they did back off the gain.

Hopefully, more artists will reject this trend that really makes no sense & probably hurts record sales as the quality seems to be no different than a 128-bit pirated .mp3 file.

Calvin Broadus, Compton, CA

"Impact?" Total boredom, more likely... if you smack the ear and brain with a noise that has no dynamics, you get a very bored, and annoyed, person. Music consumers these days are being force fed a narrow band of boring music by a scared major record industry, and a media dominated by the needs of advertising companies, not listeners. Passively waiting for good music to appear in your life this way is a guarantee of boredom- there's more interesting, and dynamically appealing, music out there than there ever has been, but you have to be an ACTIVE consumer and search for it- all of us now have the ability (though illegal) of getting a lot of free music, but the downside of that is you have to search the net for the musicians out there who are still making good music- there's millions of them, most of them ignored by the industry and radio, since their records aren't necessarily 'impactful', but just happen to be really GOOD music made by people who care for the listener's experience.

tom green, London,

I love music.

I was lucky to grow up while it still existed. My parents both played instruments. I listened avidly to the radio since age 6. By 12 I had made friends with a couple of the dj's and got to hang around the station a little. I already had a bunch of singles. I noticed they sounded different at home. Got showed the LA-2A compressor (boy would I love one of those!) running at 15-20 dB gain reduction. Now I like to make oldies tapes (ok, cds now) for the car. I fiddled with compression to get close to my recollection of the old AM sound. At 15 dB G.R. I still have 12 dB headroom and can hear in my truck. I also can't clip the other car's system. Then I put in a store bought disc & blow my ears off. Never mind trying to listen to the local news station with their 0.5 ms release.

It's not just music. No kid's toy doesn't emit tons of aliasing and other nasties. Appliances beep. The car wants gas. We are becoming square waves.

Don't get me started on DV...

Mike Marston, San Jose, CA, USA

I agree with Roger Vaughan (above). The overall affect of this buzzing, mindless, hyper-limited music (dumbing down the sound, increasing the impact at the expense of artistic texture and nuance) absolutely reflects what is all around us. What other option is there? To make it beautiful but so quiet in comparison that the incredible music is lost amongst the noise?

It's only a matter of time before mother nature takes this land back from us in a fit of fury.

Mike Phillips, Warrington,

What's limited is the ears of the older generation. Baby Boomers are going deaf, hence, unfamiliar music which they don't remember sounds like buzzing to them.

Charles, NYC,

I am a musician. Remind me never to have T Bubb work on any of my music.

Alex Cooper, Baltimore,

This is nothing new - radio stations have been squashing signals for an apparently 'louder' sound for decades. The digital media of this century does allow the process to be more precise, but again, this compression issue is as old as commercial radio. Great to see its 're-discovery'.

Thomas Chrapkiewicz, Detroit, Michigan/USA

To Barry. Actually, in some American cities you will be stopped if your car music is too loud. Unfortunately the greater part of the world is in frank decadence, not to mention bad taste.

Eugene, Heidelberg, germany

The article doesn't mention the motivation behind this trend that decreases quality. There is a reason, even if a bad one. If you are in loud and noisy environments, you only hear the loud parts of the songs. It is in club like environments that the mass market often forms opinions of new songs.

This shouldn't justify homogenizing the music to the insult of audiophiles for the benefit of viral influence of songs through clubs.

Carlton Hobbs, DFW, TX

As a studio engineer i have to say that modern pop songs which lack compression would sound quite odd as it is so prevelant at the moment and also makes the track sound better. If a song has been mastered well it should not click or buzz on a car stereo, and if it does then that means you need to replace the cheap 50p speakers with higher quality ones so you can listen to it as intended or of course turn down the volume.

T Bubb, Guildford,

Part of this has to do with the technology involved in broadcasting FM. FM signals travel in straight lines & don't follow the curvature of the Earth. The louder the signal the further it travels clearly & the bigger a station's range. FM radio has been squashing their signal before labels started doing so. For a lot of people music is background. Is this wrong? It is immoral that others don't lend the same weight you do to a particular artistic medium, (Roger)? Labels will provide consumers with whatever they're looking to buy. People got used to an overcompressed sound via exposure to FM radio's technology, & it is now an expectation. The sound of rock music itself was greatly shaped by SLL consoles. I don't hear any condemnation along those lines (a crusade to change the way snare drums are EQ'd?). Educate people, change their preferences, and the market will respond, instead of suggesting if it weren't for the profit motive everyone would share your oh so enlightened preferences.

Kyle, St. Paul, USA, MN

Dynamic range compression can add "impact" to softer passages. When done with artistic taste, it gives soloists a uniquely powerful musical presence in a mix. Adam Sherman is unfair to blame one sound engineering technique for so much damage, when the fault is poor craftsmanship in its use.
...also wrong to confuse it with bandwidth compression (to make sound files small enough to download). Both can be sonically harmful, with more harm done to tracks hovering near 0dB.

1) There is a lack of "headroom" at 0dB: the recalculated waveform coming out of the final Fourier transform needs peaks >0, where no sample values can exist. This causes "clipping" -a harsh hissing distortion.
2) Sampling resolution is worst near 0dB, because of the "integer" number system used to represent samples in .wav and .mp3 formats. "Floating point" formats for sound samples should be off-patent by now, and need some commercial inroad. This could be it.

"11" need not sound bad if the dial goes to 100.

Greg Jaxon, Kane Co., IL

Here here! Or Hear Hear!

Visiting this issue is long overdue. Perhaps it's because music needs to be heard on the car radio, but of course -- don't they already jack up the volume level of the advertisements.

Here's a partial list of audio faux-pas:

- English DJ on inflight radio channels with reverberated compressed voices who sound like the MC at a strip-club: show-time boys, let's give a warm Zanibar welcome to Miss Cherry Rivers.

- Close miking of all instruments and voices so that the level can be manipulated by the 'engineer' not the conductor or the musicians. Also close miking eliminates any sense of stereo, natural room reverberation, and phase coherence.. to avoid this you have to go to minimalist-mikists, such as Cleveland's Telerc Records, and certain audiophile labels.

Terry, Hawksbury, Ontario

Just go into any average factory/warehouse with a radio playing- 9 times out of ten the volume is up to full ,pushing the device into harmonic distortion- with transitorised amps this creates odd-order harmonics which the ear finds harsh.Ironicaly old valve radios produce even-order harmonics which are warm and pleasing, hence some audiphiles and electric guitarists prefer to use technology dating back to the early 1900's.There's progress for you.

Michael Harris, Cheshire, england

As other readers have pointed out, it's been going on for some time. A lot of older (vinyl) records have far better sound quality than today's pressings - with quieter levels of background noise and greater dynamic swings. CD's have a whole list of vices - they don't need more - and I won't even mention MP3's. High levels of compression are not necessary with good equipment. The recording engineers need to stop catering for the lowest common denominator (the commuter in the car) - the radio stations add their own compression anyway - and use compression judiciously.

i Morris, St Jean de Luz, Pays Basque

The phrase is "Retroactive".

We are seeing a polarisation, between 'quality', refined listeners, and people who just want to burn their eardrums out. This kind of thing will always sell. Thing...

Paul Wady, London, Britain

It certainly ought to be an offence for drivers to play music so loudly it can be heard outside their vehicle.

Barry, Wallington, UK

Hey guys, instead of turne it up, so people could hear the music that almost can't be heard anymore, cause it just fell mute... it make us deaf... it's always the same.... isn't that the thing? the music should be tried, experimented, invented... why to do the same again and again, why the music, when all the other types of art can be experimented and for that prized, the music get stucked. Why not TAKE A RISK! Take a risk on the music!
An example is Balacabala, try it at www.myspace.com/balacabala (the music is composed with that concept and is not masterized... the picks existis, it's needed!!! - music had space and not just sound... it needs more!

Raquel Dutra, Sao Paulo, Brazil

I have been engineering various types of music for over thirty years. I find a lot of engineers have lost the understanding on the use of compression or never figured it out, it does have its good points, its just not to flatten out the life of what we hear. Music is starting to sound like pink noise, is that what people are paying there $20 a CD for?
Its about time we did get back to the way music is supposed to sound like. Thanks for letting me rant.
Warren
The Masters Tracks

Warren Goold, Tehachapi, Ca, USA

That the loudness war exists only serves to confirm that Thomas Beecham was right when he said that "the British may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes". This now clearly extends far beyond Britain. It worries me that a generation of children and teenagers have grown up and are growing up being fed the attitude that this sort of audio processing is normal. It's not just in rock and pop either; switch on almost any commercial TV gameshow and hear the same effect being used for 'impact'.

There are no winners in the loudness war, but anyone who cares about the subtlety of form and structure in audio art and entertainment ends up being a loser.

With digital signal processing being relatively straight forward and cheap to produce these days, there's no reason why compression can't be built in at the reproduction end (eg. in the car stereo itself), not forever printed into the original delivery medium.

At last, some noise is being made about the noise.

Jonathan Scott, Bristol, UK

The Great God Sales dictates "thou shalt be louder than all others lest thou forfeit radio airtime."

The radio stations require music that cut's through, that has 'impact', they don't require it to have any qualities that one might confuse with innovation or harmony or vocal skill, or indeed any redeeming qualities whatsoever other than that it can be heard as easily as possible over whatever competing sound sources there happen to be.

It is similar with most TV adverts, they blare out between the programmes which interfere with their message. Of course radio play of pop music constitutes advertisement and product all in one, a marvellous economy of effort.

The hegemony of commercial radio as a route to market to the 'young adult' marketplace is being fractured, about time too. If the internet can become a more elegant and less repetitious medium, if the sound quality improves and the diversity returns, we all win. Well, apart from those who would homogenise everything...

Kidd Garrett, Bristol, UK

Great- the people who invest in expensive Hi-Fi's are getting a raw deal. This is driving music into being a pure background commodity.

Andrew Williams, Nottingham, UK

I propose we start up the noise squad (in earlier, saner, healthier, not-so-pathetic times, there were plenty of judges or ministers of the peace patrolling the streets). The doughnut-gobbling police is mostly useless. I say we pay for it by hefty fines laid on the noisy Godless, and after putting them through the financial wash, lock them up in an echo chamber and play that acustic excrement all stops out, and. of course, let us, the victims, watch them squirm from behind a sound-proof window as their minute faulty-wired brains short and melt. Oh please, lets do do this!

Eugene, Heidelberg, germany

This is something that has been happening for years - whilst it might be ok when you're listening on a teenager's cheapo ghetto blaster - where all that matters is the loudest sound - or in the car where the music has to compete against lots of background noise, it means when you want to listen to the music properly it is impossible.

Oh well, the record companies won't be getting any of my money then. They appear to have lost interest recently - the sooner they go bust the better.

David Spooner, London, UK

This is great that attention pointed at overt loudness is getting more overtly loud! Thank God... music is supposed to be enjoyable, but it's becoming another medium for treating people like cattle to be milked for their money.

There's "impact" (note comment by Arctic Monkeys' record co,) all over the place. All of our modern consumer-based society is becoming full of this 'square wave buzz' from every corner. Fast food, Big-Fat-Beautiful-Hair, Shiny Red Trucks, and modern rock/pop music.

Beauty and art, things we need to affirm what we are or are supposed to be, is run over rough-shod in favor of loud obnoxious gags to bring in profits. People will tire of being treated like mindless, obedient worker-bees. I hope...

Roger Vaughan, Smithfield, RI

While on this subject, perhaps someone can do something about reducing the sound of so-called background music on television. It is now so obtrusive that it is sometimes difficult to hear the words. This applies not only to "entertainment" but also to documentaries. And then there is the hammring noise which comes with news headlines.
My wife is a bit deaf, so we have the sub-titles on and I find I am increasingly reading them because the music is drowning out the words.

John Claxton, Portishead, UK

Interesting article, the poor mastering of CD's is one of a number of reasons why vinyl fans may have been right all along. Just because the CD format permits the raising of the level in this way doesn't mean you should.The purpose of Hi-Fi is to recreate the sound of the live performance, to closely match the original. Listen to a well mastered CD or Vinyl record through a good stereo system and you can hear the difference. The good news is that as the master tapes remain it is possible that at a later date these recordings will be remastered by someone who has a clue.

chris Welsby, Newton-le-willows, England

I wonder when they'll stop suppressing that study that showed a direct correlation between intelligence and preferred volume.

Crank it up, dummies.

Frances Marion, South Carolina,