Michael Fossenkemper wrote: the difference is... in film, Dolby and THX has limitations and requirements to put their logo on the film. If you want to put the logo on the film, they dictate the requirements.

the concept would be the same. you don't have to apply to the standards, but if you want the logo, you have to keep certain specifications.

don't get me wrong, i'm not a fan of standardizing everything, either. and believe me, germans are the masters of standardizing!
this is not about how it's supposed to sound, but how loud it should be. imagine that you're playing cd's or mp3's in random mode and you don't have to adjust the volume for each and every song (especially while driving a car) and still have a good sound with a big dynamic range. i would like that, as most music listeners would...

anyway, whether this system will work or not, and i'm not saying it's perfect and THE way to go, when they get the attention of the normal music listener and make him aware of the problem with overloud music and the advantages of dynamics it would be a big step. because it's not enough that we are aware of the problem, the ones buying the music have to be aware of it.
so if this project will raise the awareness of the loudness wars it's a good thing for me...

by the way, i personally think that a dynamic range of 14 (as suggested by them and measured with their meter) is not necessary. somewhere between 8 and 10 (again as would be measured with their meter) would be enough (for my personal taste).

Some good points all around. All I know is a lot of good music is being destroyed by this 'fad'.

This standard measures the distortion in the song not the loudness level. The two do not always have to go hand and hand.

You can over compress things and still not clip them. it is possible to make a cd loud without over limiting.

I personally don't see anything wrong saying this recording XX amount of distortion on it, as a consumer I would want to know. Too often know I buy a disc and can't listen to it. If nothing else its a good marketing tool, like THX.

Link555 wrote: This standard measures the distortion in the song not the loudness level. The two do not always have to go hand and hand.

it's also about loudness. what they want to do is measure the dynamic range of the music and compare it to their set standard of 14 (which would be 14 dB of dynamic range). when a title or album has a DR8 (8dB dynamic range) they want to lower the whole level by 6dB so it will have the same or similar loudness as DR14 music. of course loudness is perceived differently on different material, but the difference woudn't be as dramatic as let's say the last metallica and the original release of sting's "dream of the blue turtle" (which do coexist on my ipod!).

My method:

ReplayGain scan as much as possible, set all non-RG-scanned tracks to play back 7.3dB quieter, and it all balances out. Classical stops being a tiny hiss in the speakers and dance stops eating my ears.
This only works on my PC though.

Edit: ReplayGain doesn't affect dynamics - just the master gain of track, which is decided based upon the amount of frequency content (I think it's weighted according to the "flat response").

Thanks for that ouzo77. I would more interested in just regulating distortion levels.

If you want to see real change, then there has to be a new format. It's really as simple as that, then it's only a matter of time before that is pushed to the limits.

technology will regulate by itself. It always has. Look at every form of art and it's dictated by the medium it's delivered on. What if someone said "Hey Jackson Pollock, you can't go flinging paint on a canvas, it was designed to be brushed on". "Hey Jimi, you're overdriving those tubes and it's causing distortion. no distortion allowed".

Every medium will be pushed, that's human nature.

The new medium is the flash drive.... maybe when bigger drives are small enough....oh wait they already are. But now mp3 has everyone convinced they need 2000 songs on there ipod or they being ripped off. Maybe if the data compression format improved?

Michael Fossenkemper wrote: If you want to see real change, then there has to be a new format. It's really as simple as that, then it's only a matter of time before that is pushed to the limits.

There's flac. There are lossless formats but they're not popular.

but with any other or new format you still have the 0 dB limit. so what difference will it make?

with any new format, there's an adjustment period.