[kj] "Absolute Dissent": The Loudness Wars

[Marcel]

As an "advanced layman" I think it's save to say that records you 
feel comfortable listening to in a whole run usually are mastered in 
a halfway decent way. There are records, where you like the music, 
but you'll feel somewhat stressed by listening to them. Then again 
several of my friends have complained about a recent Foo Fighters 
record, saying they had to adjust the volume all of the time, as more 
subtle parts wouldn't seem loud enough. Can't really comment on that 
as I don't follow that band, but that sounds like an old school 
approach to mastering to me, where you don't push the overall level 
as far as you can, while the "loudness war thing" is to do just 
that... One of the the worst examples seems to be the latest 
Metallica record, which you probably wouldn't want to listen to, even 
if it was mastered errm "humanely".

With analogue recordings you can push the limits and have a nice 
rough sound with a "healthy" distortion, while pushing the limits 
with digital material is limited as you will eventually reach a 
certain point where digital distortion sets in which is just an 
annoying kind of noise. (unless you're a HC industrial person)

Personally I think AD has been mastered quite aggressively without 
overdoing it. F.e. listening to "The Raven King" on my car stereo it 
seemed to me it was quite demanding for a rather soft tune.

Please correct me if I'm totally wrong.

Marcel