Loudness Wars reaching dangerous levels

perhaps we start with the musicians...the people responsible for the artform we love...not the bean counters, although that is where the largest resistance will be met in this war...instead of letters, petitions, and pleas to the capitalist based music industry, we go direct to the source. We tell THEM that their art is being manipulated and destroyed. Unless they don't care and just want you to buy tickets to the show...who knows....it is a very sad thing to watch, and listen to the ruination of this simple universal artform. I can't think of a good analogy and I love analogies. It is just very troubling on many levels. Cherish your top recordings. Like good music these recordings are poetry in motion...They are special. They capture the feel of life and vitality and are the prime reason we are audiogon members.

Shadorne
I disagree with you on this one. I have a pair of speakers that fit your generalized description of "small thin elegant modest sized two way speakers": it's a pair of Dynaudio Contour S3.4. They are only 7.5 inches wide, about 48 high and something like 14 deep. They have two 6.5 mid/bass drivers that are driven in tandem, such that the acoustic surface area is the equivalent to about 9.5 inch driver. With the tweeter they are a true two way design. I chose these speakers based on what I perceived to be truth of timbre, beautfiul organic midrange, sweet and integrated top end, and really great bass punch and extension...all of this with no sense of compression or dynamic power limiting. They just sound real to me. That they are tall and elegant is icing on the cake!! If I am fortunate enough to upgrade speakers in the future my dollars vote for something in the upper Dyn range. I do not think it is valid to cast aspersions based on cabinet size and physical driver implementations. Dynaudio designers obviously know what they are doing and make gorgeous sounding speakers that are also easy to integrate into any decor. Maybe you have tower envy? -lol cmon i'm joking dude...

Hi Mr T,
My friend has Carver AL's and they sound awesome. These are totally different than dynamic drivers and i really like each for their strengths. The Carver's sound HUGE, something about a 4 foot long transducer... For me I am used to dynamic driver "sound" and I really like that. I also do not have the space for gigantic panels and the like, plus the wifey really likes our current speakers.
To my ears the dyns sound the least "boxy" out of this type of approach. In my wildest dreams I would have a few dedicated rooms with all these different transducer/ front end implementations..when i'm bored with one sound walk to the next room and so on...

Mr T, the end SPL you listen to is simply a scale factor to the signal. If the signal is compressed it's still going to sound that way no matter the end volume level. Easily verified: take a pop cd or say the red hot chili pepper's californication cd and try at any SPL.

You can identify that hideous sound as soon as any trace of signal makes it to the speakers... and it's all the same regardless of genre: flat, tinny, wimpy, screechy, cymbals that sound like static bursts, "drums" that you can hear but not feel, basically it sounds like someone put a layer of concrete (from the other forum) 1 inch thick on your woofers. They hardly move.

When used in the right doses compression can be a welcome tool to acheive a certain balance of sound, but this latest trend (loudness wars) is killing the sound as it was laid down.

I think we all know how to identify it, but now the problem is what can we do about it?

Eldartford,
(what is that a cross breed El Camino, Dodge Dart, and Ford)?
I am trying to relate my experience with the way compressed recordings sound. I can hear "that sound" at any volume level. Compression is on the recording, regardless of what you noise floor is at home. yes some low level detials may be better heard but the cost is a bland sound; there is no snap, decreased "slew rate" of the signal, smeared transients and on and on... this is independent of playback average SPL. God forbid one of these bleeder POS recordings is played back loud...

who knows maybe it's the industry's way of getting us to protect our hearing...it does not need to be loud to hear it all, but in the end you don't want to listen to it anyhow...

How about Stereophile, TAS, and other big audio rags combine forces with Audigon...we have the publishing horsepower of these bigtime mags and worldwide membership of AudiogoN. Stereophile at least mentions AudiogoN from time to time...how to take this bull by the horns...that is going to be a challenge. Does anyone know any lobbyists???!!

Recordings are sipping from the fire hose. Of course you should not expect anywhere near the full energy and dynamic drama of live events(studio, stage, etc)... Just look at the transducer equation from live to home and then think of the recording as a transformer of sorts. The limitation has always been the recording. You could have a room full of Wilson X2's and the best gear on the planet...can you imagine popping in a "CD quality" modern rock recording? Yechhh. Someone mentioned that compression is necessary, and I agree (ever see a bass guitar amplifier head/cab? Ever see/feel how tight those drivers are? The hand slap on the strings without compression, would pop your home speaker woofers not unlike that scene in Back to Future (awesome... for a second). It's sipping from the fire hose....
We spend thousands on high dynamic range speakers, mega watt amps, super low noise floor source gear, acoustic treatments...etc...But the problem with the high-end is that it's broken from the source...enter the merry go round. A car analogy, since i'm fond of them too, is like using stale low grade gasoline in a fine sports car...occasionally a fresh tank comes along and that is when you want to try the new twisty roads...

The high end is the most annoying but simultaneously captivating interest I have ever known...sigh

...I need to sip from the Java hose.