Analog vs. digital segment on PBS

Eldatford,

Actually the mastering engineer will compress (squash) the hell out of music first and then boost the average signal to usually within as little as 3 db of the maximum that a CD can digitally represent with 16 bits. This means the CD will sound loud as the dynamic range is now squashed to be contained within the top 10 db or less of the entire CD dynamic range format....i.e. the 96 db overall dynamic range is completely wasted at least 10 bits or more are all the same 1's practically throughout the entire CD!

This is great for a noisy car environment but in a quiet environment with a good system the music just sounds like what it is...squashed crap like you stepped in something...only good thing is it doesn't smell!!!

Shadorne...The compression you talk about is common on pop recordings, but I have few of those. Mostly my recordings, LPs as well as CD, are classical, and there is no obvious compression. Some are quiet pieces for the most part, but somewhere there will be a peak that exercises all the bits.
Cliping of a digital signal is much worse than for an analog signal, but is much easier to avoid.

Eldartford,

If you are listening to classical then it sounds like they are simply making the music fit on the CD as loud as possible without clipping the signal. The peak being close to the max 16 bits. That is normal procedure. There is nothing wrong with that.

Regarding the finding that music on CDs usually peaks very close to 0 dB, this is an operation called Normalization. The track or tracks are scanned, the absolute peak is logged and the appropriate amount of gain is applied to bring it up to the max. This can make a 16 bit CD use its maximum resolution to best effect since the music is usually recorded in 20 or 24 bit resolution. Unfortunately, fairly often excessive compression and unnatural EQ are also added in the mastering process.

Jlambrick...I was not aware that people who make CDs took such care. It does make it a lot easier for me to do the same thing on playback because I don't have to adjust gains for each CD.