What Are You Listening To?

DonnerUndBlitzen wrote: »

This morning I've been doing some testing of my CDs versus Spotify. I have been curious to find out if Spotify increases the levels on its music files to make all the levels similar and louder. A leveler program can bring up the lows and make everything in the music track sound louder. This is frequently done with "remastered" pop music. I read an article on this and it showed how Michael Jackson's "Bad" Lp has had this done to it in 3 different "remasterings." Another example of this is ELOs "Out of the Blue." The remastering has added much more lower end bass to the music than the original Lp.

Part of what I like about my RTI A3s and A5s is that they remain clear and detailed with the quiet passages of classical music. I just compared the adagio in Symphony 4 (Karajan Beethoven 1977 cycle, from his Symphony edition, on CD) to the same track at Spotify. I also have this same symphony cycle on Lp records. That track starts off quiet and gets much louder at about the 48 second mark. The Spotify track did not sound louder in the early quiet part of this track and sounded just as loud as the CD in the louder parts of the track. I like the wide dynamic range of classical music.

I recently listened to most of Frank Sinatra's catalog at Spotify and some by Dean Martin. Both of these artists music have much more dynamic range than modern pop/rock and I turned the volume up almost the same as with classical music.