From 1980 on, CDs got louder. From 1990 on the process became destroying. My personal impression is that since about 2000 CDs do no more get louder, some very new CDs are even quieter than early loud ones. From '97 I got already album gains of -9, I'd say that for today's mainstream pop this is still very common.
Perhaps the decreasing selling numbers have some benefit ?
Of course I don't want to gloss over anything, but have you examples for this claim ? I'm referring only to mainstream pop.

I think it's just that they've hit the point where it's really not possible to drive the music any louder without actually sounding bad. I didn't know anything about the loudness race before I came here, but I did know that Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf (RG -11) was the worst-sounding album I had ever heard.

I don't know if it has stopped as of yet or not since I haven't bought any new CD's since 2002.

My collection spans from 1980-2002, the only "quite" CD I remember that ReplayGain wanted to add gain (+) to the whole album was "Bolt Thrower - Realm of Chaos - 1989". I remember thinking something was wrong with the CD being so quite since back in 1989 before HA.org existed to educate us all I didn't know any better.

For rock / pop & metal expect anything from -7 to -12db, average is around -10db. There is probably no more headroom for higher levels. The overall quality of the mix is still declining even though the loudness values are more or less stable.

Is this it? Badly mastered recordings for ever?

There seems to be no end in sight for the loudness race.

[sarcasm] Hmm, perhaps the loudness war has hit it's peak (pun intended). What does this mean for us now? Well, they'll either look for other genre's to ruin, or develop a whole new revolutionary way of making music "sound better" (probably both). [/sarcasm]

This was posted in a thread on another forum that Pio2001 linked to in another thread discussing the loudness race...

Now here's a very hot album for its era: Aerosmith's Pump. The original CD from 1989 (not the 2001 remaster) has an album replaygain of -9.6dB!

It is a bad situation... what happen in the recording studios? The new recordings (aprox. 10 years ago) have a very poor dynamic range, extremely compressed, and very offensive for many ears and many people... Why?? sound engineers in the recording studios are crazy????

I bought the 2004 Remaster of Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut" last week, and after I had ripped, encoded, and replaygained it, I was treated to a pleasant surprise.

replaygain_album_gain = -5.90 dB

That's an unheard-of replaygain value for a new release.

I compared it to The Who's "The Ultimate Collection" (from 2002):

replaygain_album_gain = -11.14 dB


The mastering of "The Final Cut" isn't perfect, but it's a great find these days. Now, I'm not going to get my hopes up and start thinking that this is the start of a reverse trend, but I'm tempted to write a pleased letter of thanks to the record company for not just compressing the hell out of that remaster.

Album RG of albums in my current playlist (save the last one), only recent rips, so I know no normalizing was done. * indicates an album that I expect to be loud (Ozzy, FI). Remsaters only if noted. This is a pretty random sample of my collection.

-The Alan Parsons Project
Tales of Mystery and Imagination: -6.04 dB
Turn of a Friendly Card: -0.86 dB
-Jethro Tull
Stand Up: -1.90 dB
Benefit (remaster, 2001): -6.24 dB
(I'm not sure, but I may also hear artifacts. Faint, and can't be sure w/o hearing the original)
-Ozzy Osbourne
Blizzard of Ozz*: -3.54 dB
Ozzmosis (remaster, 2002)*: -9.03 dB (figures )
-Jesus Christ Superstar: -4.49 dB
-Faith No More
The Real Thing: -3.67 dB
-Black Sabbath:
(self-titled) (remsater, ?yr): -3.78 dB
-Queensryche
The Warning: -2.51 dB
Rage for Order: -1.27 dB
Empire: -3.03 dB
Promised Land*: -7.39 dB
Operation: Mindcrime: -3.07 dB
-Led Zeppelin
Box set (1990): -4.52 dB
Box set, volume 2: -5.76 dB
How the West Was Won*: -7.49 dB
-Melissa Etheridge
(self-titled): -1.81 dB
-EL&P
(self-titled): -4.27 dB
Brain Salad Surgery (remaster, 1996): -4.52 dB
-Deep Purple
Made in Japan*: -3.49 dB
-Alice in Chains
Dirt*: -8.19 dB
-Soundgarden
Badmotorfinger*: -5.57 dB
-Frank Zappa
Apostrophe/Overnight Sensation: +1.61 dB
-Albert Collins
Cold Snap: -2.48 dB
Ice Pickin': -2.19 dB
-The Moody Blues
Days of Future Past: -1.32 dB
-Pink Floyd
DSoTM (remaster, 1992): -3.67 dB
The Final Cut (remaster, 1997): -3.75 dB
-Various:
I am Sam soundtrack*: -7.74 dB

Comments:
Ozzmosis...why a remaster? I was unable to find an original, like the one that was stolen. I'm thinking of finding an original, and an earlier pressing of DSotM.

Apostrophe/Overnight Sensation: this is an old disc (1986), with brittle paper beginning to yellow in the leaflet. AAD. It ispossibly the best sounding disc I have ever heard. Everything is crisp and clear. 18 years old, and with all our great technological innovations, this old thing sounds phenominal. Also odd, that it is the only one with a positive album RG value. It's anti-loud!

Badmotorfinger, Dirt: I was quite suprised to see such a value for Badmotorfinger. I was expecting something on the order of Dirt.

Made in Japan: I was also suprised with this one. "...make everything loder than everything else."

I Am Sam: I was loaned this by a friend, and just now ripped it for this info. I'm suprised it isn't greater. Extremely compressed, though, but very quiet. There's certainly a lot of low volume stuff that was cut off entirely so that it compressed well. Lucy in the Sky with Daimonds should not be louder than Slaves and Bulldozers.

Overall, it does seem to go up with the newer ones, but remasters of the old ones still don't seem too bad--though not fantastic, either.

I have the same disc. It's not the best sounding recording ever made in terms of fidelity but it's very very dynamic, especially for being a "rock" recording. And the music is great two!

If you hadn't had those replaygain values to tell you that it isn't as loud as other recordings (according to replaygain), would you still be writing that letter? Was you pleasantly surprised before you saw those replaygain values by actually listening to the album?

It has been stated many times before, replaygain isn't an indication of quality.

edit: I own the original CD release of this album and for the record it has an album replaygain value of -2.63 dB. I've always thought the album sounds pretty good.

If you think about the musical character of this album, then this result is inevitable. The entire record (with the exception of one song, "Not Now John") consists of lengthy very quiet sections interspersed with very loud bits. The entire effect of the album replies on these extreme dynamics, so hyper-compression simply cannot be used.

You can do that, but it only makes sense if you really crave for the oldest version. The 1992 remaster (first released in the Shine On box) is considered a very good version. It's not just remastered, the sound is cleaned up in more ways and frankly does sound better than the original vinyl I used to own (was maybe a bit worn out )

High negative replaygain is just an indication of more compression, but it's not the whole story. Loud, busy (e.g. rock) music will probably be louder than quieter (e.g. acoustic) stuff . I agree of course that past some point overcompression becomes obvious.

If all analysed material is normalized to the same known peak level it is a general indication. The gain then tells something about the peak-to-average difference. The quality always decreases while decreasing it, although one may hide the effects with a good compressor.

That's odd... I have an original pressing of Ozzmosis, album gain ends up at -9.44, so it would appear that the remaster is quieter

That's part of why I spent the time with the reply just sitting there to look at the I am Sam CD, to see how it came out, as it has no obvious clipping, but is the most compressed album I have ever heard (but as you can tell, I'm not much in newer pop stuff). It also shows how little the Replay Gain really matters as far as the actual quality of the content, even though it has often been used as a gauge for that quality.

It is one way to support it (note I only managed one album louder than the super-compressed one, and I would love to see an Ozzmosis remaster in which Thunder Underground and Tomorrow were given more range), but really doesn't do justice as a real way of describing crappiness.

Markanini: there may be better than that Zappa, even of what I have. However, it is by far the best that I have made in FLAC or higher quality MP3, and closely listened to. Even compared to other reasonably simple recordings (after all, many albums just have so much going on that it won't sound super clear to our ears even if done perfectly), it's like there was a layer of foam between the speakers and me, and it was just then removed.

CliveB: an interesting note, it was The Final Cut that got me lurking here a couple years ago. Not only was I finding the 128k Xings to be of terrible quality, but all normalized. This completely ruined The Final Cut, as One of the Few was unbearably loud, yet the quiet pieces of it were meant to transition smoothly into the next track.

Danbee: Looks that way. The album gain is -9.13 dB with the bonus tracks not included (but since it is an album of singles, I didn't count them out of posted value, as I did with Benefit).

I own both the original cd release and the 1994 remaster. I can't pull out replaygain values at this moment, but I must say that the 1994 has a much warmer sound overall and therefore sounds more dynamic and lively.

**I must remember tomorrow to dig out both versions and compare them (replaygain)