fill35U 1,845 Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 Article at Sound on Sound, explaining how overall it's not the overuse of compression tools that resulted in reduced "dynamic range" and increased loudness. It's actually stylistic changes in popular music: 'Dynamic Range' and the Loudness War at soundonsound.com 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danowood 2,167 Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 I have seldom have been debunked about the obsession for high wattage amps questioning me as to why I wanted such high wattage amps or a need for such loudness abilities. I always offered my theory that depending on the amp and its build that high wattage didn't necessarily mean clean loudness. I explained that the higher the wattage the amp the less you needed to turn the pre volume up and with it came cleaner sound and less distortion with lower pre drive settings. I know that theory is argumentive, but that is what attitude I developed at a younger age in life and somehow it has followed me through my journey. I'm not explaining it very well but there may be some that follow that trial of thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fill35U 1,845 Posted November 25, 2014 Author Share Posted November 25, 2014 I have seldom have been debunked about the obsession for high wattage amps questioning me as to why I wanted such high wattage amps or a need for such loudness abilities. Few on this site would argue the utility of power headroom! But I'm pretty sure the Loudness War is just as valid with low-powered systems, including headphones. OTOH, it might have been driven, if indirectly, by the proliferation of low-powered, low-fi personal and portable sound systems used in less-than-ideal listening environments. I always offered my theory that depending on the amp and its build that high wattage didn't necessarily mean loudness. Speaker sensitivity probably has the most to do with volume potential of a system. Home hi-fi speakers might be as low as 85dB/W@1m, whereas serious pro speakers are better than 115dB these days. The home speakers would need 1000W to put out the volume the pro speakers could with 1W! But the Loudness War is really about prerecorded music... I explained that the higher the wattage the amp the less you needed to turn the pre volume up and with it came cleaner sound and less distortion with lower pre drive settings. I know that theory is argumentive, but that is what attitude I developed at a younger age in life and somehow it has followed me through my journey. I'm not explaining it very well but there may be some that follow that trial of thought. The best practical place to control system volume is at the input of the amp. Slightly less-optimal choice is at the preamp's output to the amp. There are lots of articles on how to set up the gain stages in systems: What Is Gain Structure at diyaudio.com Setting Sound System Level Controls at rane.com BTW, compressors and limiters can be fancy and fascinating, but there are "automatic volume controls" as well: AVC-2 from Formula Sound Useful for pro applications where you want to automatically cap the volume of the music, but allow speech (PA) between songs to be loud and intelligible. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now