Thread: Am I going deaf?

Seems to me (and this might not be news) that music nowadays is horrifically loud That's not just me being a fuddy-duddy, either. After all, I like metal in manageable doses (Death Magnetic all in one go is a stretch though).

As an example: I've ripped quite a few of my CDs to my iPod. They've come out much of a muchness, the level's fine throughout. Queen's A Night at the Opera album (released 1977, remastered copy 1991) is really quiet o_O I mean really! I have to have this up at 90% volume to hear it over London traffic, and about 80% on the train to work. But then, I must immediately reduce the volume after the end of any song on this album (Love of my Life being favourite ), because I've also got Metallica's Death Magnetic album (released 2008) on the Pod too, and it always seems to jump in and beat up my eardrums after the quiet songs. Death Magnetic is loud (it goes with the territory), but this is ridiculous: 60% volume to hear it over London traffic, and about 45-50% to be comfortable on the train. Queen are no shrinking violets, and they're a big stadium band like Metallica, so what gives?

Generally, I'm comfortable with around 60-70% volume on the player with the rest of my tracks.

Is music being recorded much louder nowadays?

Adjust the songs' volume individually!

Use in ear headphones so you can't hear anything but the music... And annoyingly loud people. Works for me anyways...

Originally Posted by hinarei

Is music being recorded much louder nowadays?

Yup it is! There's actually a term for it, the 'loudness war': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Pretty annoying stuff!

Originally Posted by Betong Åsna

Adjust the songs' volume individually!

...yes, thank you. I know I can do that, and have done for several songs, equalizing and adjusting where needed. It's a pain to do that and not have some sort of constant level though, but that served as just an example rather than proof of a point. Music is louder nowadays.

Originally Posted by Aoshi Shinomori

Use in ear headphones so you can't hear anything but the music... And annoyingly loud people. Works for me anyways...

got 'em. Hafta wear unplugged headphones too to cancel out the rest of the noise. Going to work in central London completely unable to hear anything is a scary experience Thing about in-ear pods though is that I've been told they can contribute towards deafness because sound is delivered too efficiently.

Originally Posted by antmanbee

Yup it is! There's actually a term for it, the 'loudness war': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Aha! I knew I wasn't going mad as well as deaf! thankee antmanbee! I couldn't think of a term to look up, but now I know there's a whole article already, I'm off to be reading it

It is true the songs are recorded louder than they used to be, but that's because we are able to now.
Although i have to admit i only have my volume up to 60% all the time

Unless you're listening to your own recordings, I guess? They're quieter than a mouse with laryngitis

Oh but my latter ones are better right?

Yeh, I could actually hear more than 4 words the second time around.

Yup. But a lot of them are in Japanese, so you'd be stumped either way.

Oh yeh, good point You and your silly girl voices

I'll be handing my ISP in tomorrow, so I'll have a spare moment to do that for you at last.

More than likely! Sticking lolis in your ears is against medical advice!