[BC] Could our concept of audio be all wrong?

[Rich Wood]

------ At 10:07 AM 3/16/2009, Jim Tonne wrote: -------

>I was apalled when I examined some rock-n-roll CD tracks
>on an oscilloscope several years ago.  I noticed the AGC
>attack time was up in the few millisecond range (which is
>about where the ear likes it), then the overshoots were
>clipped (ugh!) and THEN the signal was pre-emphasized
>(presumably to the 50us/15us CD time-constants).

My recording friends are incredibly frustrated. They spend weeks 
recording and mixing an album only to have the performers tell the 
mastering engineer they want the CD as loud (compressed, 
pre-emphasized, de-emphasized, squashed, smashed and mashed) as 
possible. They hear another band's CD and want to be just as loud. 
When I say loud I mean apparent loudness. The kind that makes an 
Adobe Audition waveform one big splotch of green.

>Sometimes I think the Audimax/Volumax weren't all that bad!

We made a lot of money with big ratings at WJIB(FM), Boston, with 
LA-2s feeding an Audimax/Volumax combo. It sounded sweet.

Rich