Thanks for the reminder. My BIL drew this to my attention on Friday and I forgot over a slightly stressful weekend.
Maybe it's about ears, but on the Metallica example they played, I don't find the toms "more impactful" on the non compressed version at all. I see exactly why Metallica released it the way they did. But I don't like recordings that sound distorted, particularly if it affects the guitars. If they want distortion, they need to be doing it at the recording stage.
Compressed stuff has a sharp edge to it, similar to "over brightening" in image processing. Which as my Sis pointed out as we watched their big new telly (I don't like really big tellies, I don't like sharing a room with a broadcasting machine that thinks it's bigger than I am) is a chronic habit now, but people like it. It makes photos look slightly hyper-real.
If music isn't compressed at all, on a recording, unless you have super-excellent playback kit, the quietest bits kind of dribble out at the bottom. OTOH if it comes out sounding hissy, I don't like it.
Since my earliest stereo years I enjoyed the setting once known as "presence", which I gather boosts the middle bandwidths, which is something like compression though not the same thing. Of course on our old amp, it was calibrated to EQ the sound in a certain way that wasn't offensive.
Really it doesn't matter what some producer "truly believes"! Some people like the compressed, loudened sound, some don't. I'm very much a tranny radio, TV, in-car stereo listener. I applaud the effect of wonderful studio speakers, but that is not how I normally listen to music. "Listening" may be "an art", but again, it's his hobby, not mine. "It's a matter of education" he says. Gord, this is SO Radio 4.
The rest of the program is interesting to me as it deals with "our" real listening experiences.
Audiophilia is a hobby.
I've done classical music, it's rather busy. I can hear what he's talking about on Bolero via my computer extension speakers, which are hidden behind my monitor below the level of my desktop. Hi Fi, probably not.
I always remember a report by a guy who went and listened to a lot of gold cables and pointing out all the details he could hear. But then he addmitted he went back to his Dansette and he could still hear the details! Once he actually thought about it.
Going to a concert is another matter, and it can't be truly captured on even the best recordings. That includes classical.
I was in a lecture with a small time producer once and he said: amateurs make the mistake of just turning up the levels of quiet instruments in the studio. You need to turn down the loud instruments, and then bring the whole lot to where you want it. Eno has the right of it - it's not just about how "loud" it is, it's about the content of the music signal and what your brain is doing with it.
Of course if you completely lose the "room space" on a music recording, it doesn't sound right, which is why reverb is so popular.
And so it goes on!
Thanks Granny.