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Comment by aston | Hacker News Reader

Louder is not really worse when it comes to music. In fact, try turning up whatever you're listening to right now--it'll actually sound better!

The loudness wars (mass application of massive compression that reduces dynamic range) are the music equivalent of adding salt to savory foods. People like it better even though it's technically "worse".

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Wow. Can't disagree more. Compressed audio only sounds better on crappy speakers. Maybe they are common with phones.

The effect of loudness on perception is well-documented in several studies and used to much advantage by audiophile snake-oil peddlers.

Loudness yes, but increased loudness that necessitates compression, where the compression is the negative is what is being talked about here.

Compressed audio works better in environments with a lot of ambient noise such as cars. Since this is where most people listen to (and discover) the majority of their music artists are adjusting to their audience.

Louder is not really worse ... loudness wars

Those are 2 different kinds of loud making your point sort of moot.. The former is about amplifying every frequency with the same amount (well, within limits of whatever harware you're using), the latter is about amplifying certain frequencies more than others resulting in relative differences between instruments getting smaller.

Compressing means giving up on the dynamics. It's a lossy process. E.g. the drummer started a subtle crescendo, that lasted a few bars, and now it's gone because everything sounds the same.

BTW, came to post about the wars

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Can't agree more. Dynamics may sound fantastic on your headphones, but in the average party or the average car it won't.

Just make sure that you're staying within safe listening levels as to not damage your hearing.

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