I read where compressed music causes hearing loss.

"He also said the use of "compressed" sound in modern media — in which weak signals are boosted to the level of stronger ones — is changing the way people speak.

This is from

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bud...9554654519.html

What do you think of this? When they say the signals are boosted to the level of stronger can that also apply to EQ settings?

I think you can aways lower the volume. If the sound is compressed or not wouldn't matter.

Sony Walkman terrorizes 80s youth. Film at 11.

All complete nonsense. People who listen to any music at high volumes are prone to hearing loss.

this is so true! i just recently lost my left ear listening to country music!

damn you garth!

I think several of you are misinterpreting the meaning of "compressed" here. The article is not about MP3 compression, but about the lack of dynamic range in today's music ("clipression", like some people call it here).

And actually, I think there may be some truth to this. Since no dynamic range is left in the music, there are no quiet parts anymore. It's just LOUDLOUDLOUD from start to end. And since hearing damages occurs by prolonged exposure to loud sounds, it could be a contributing factor.

I imagine you'd need sound waves at least strong enough to generate hurricane-force winds to cause the loss of an ear.

Hearing loss, though, probably requires less than that.

Specifically:



That's interesting but also, I suppose, expected. No one, particularly not children, is immune to any outside influence. This is how someone moving into an area picks up the local accent: it's likely mostly an unconscious process--just what you're hearing all the time.

However, I'd have thought there'd be forces pulling back the other way--namely, normal speech around them not on the TV. But Professor Huggonet's the professor here not me. (Is he an audiologist, too? The others quoted--the Australians--seem to be, but it doesn't say what Professor Huggonet's field is.)

I haven't got a TV and, frankly, now I'm used to their absence I find I dislike them. It's not just the cartoons where there's constant shouting (dynamic compression or not). Sports commentators in particular seem to think they have to speak as if they are in a state of permanent unmanly hysteria--mostly about nothing at all. Do they think viewers will switch off if they don't try to convince them with their voice that what's going on is exciting? Then there's the thumping rock music pushed in behind almost everything, often one snatch following another none longer than a few seconds. I hear with interactive TV there's a move to allow people to "push the red button" to cut this crap out on nature programmes and the like, because TV companies have had so many complaints from viewers.

Thanks for posting the link. It's interesting. I'm sure hearing problems, which the article also mentions, are an important issue. A few years back it was said that discos were a threat to people's hearing; now portable players seem to be current worry. Maybe that's well-founded:



I tend now not to listen to my portable player in noisy environments, such as walking down the street. The temptation to turn the volume up in order to compete with "background sounds" is too great. In any case, it's best to do one thing well rather than several indifferently, so if music is worth listening to at all, it's probably worth giving your full attention to it. As the Zen saying goes:

In fact, when the dynamic range is low, you don't have to play it loud to hear all the different parts.

So, dynamic range compression might even prevent hearing loss.

By the way, what a BAD article. Two different things are linked:

1) Compressed sound is changing the way we speak
2) A number of studies have pointed to MP3 players and "earbud" earphones as harming people's hearing.

I think they are mixing up the meaning of the word "compressed" here.

I cannot comment on the hearing loss issue. However, oversaturation in general (not just aural) does have an influence on peoples behaviour - noticing that day in day out as someone, who avoids oversaturation like the plague (which among other things, is the reason why i have no TV, no Radio and read no mainstream media at all - after you got used to some distance from this crap, it becomes difficult to understand, how the majority of people can expose themselves to so much hyped bullshit).

Hey man, why do you have your portable for then? Buy IEMs - even with disconnected player person will have 10-20 dBs less street/transportation noise. But if noise floor is reduced - why not put some music in free space?


When eating, just eat? But when listen to the music?

My thought exactly when I read the title of this thread

Ever heard of a guy called Vincent van Gogh? He was the first victim of ear loss due to compressed music.

hilarious... such a great thread title

Yeah, really, this is an interesting thread and especially for those of us professionally involved in the medical aspects of sound and hearing.

As a practicing audiologist I first became aware of the issue approximately six/seven years ago when it was proposed within an auditory e-list. The underlying rationale wasn't convincing but as a clinician I decided to withhold judgment until submitting it to former classmates involved in both research and teaching at various universities across the USA. Their response was that no existing objective evidence supports the probability that digitally compressed sounds either causes or contributes to hearing loss. The subject admittedly was discussed in terms of lossy psychoacoustical reduction of auditory stimuli as opposed to dynamic range, but I question if such would have altered my academic friends' conclusions.

The linked article states, "Audiologist Rebecca Verhoef from the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital said more research into the effects of compressed sound on speech was needed before drawing such a conclusion." Nice doctoral dissertation in the making? Currently I'm unaware of anybody who has taken the challenge. Any other audiologist reading this aware of it being done? Perhaps those of us with the dissertation challange behind us should take it up on a post-doc basis?

Finally, the posting that connects noise induced hearing loss to "oversaturation in general" surely contains some words of auditory wisdom -- at least from my personal and professional experience. My human nature wants more and more of a good thing . . . be it sugar, salt, or loud sound. Despite my training I crave loud music and it's a constant battle reminding myself to 'Turn it down, already!'. Fortunately I've been successful yet having the diagnostic equipment to check my hearing routinely has been helpful.

Once again, thanks for beginning an interesting thread.

This made me lol. You can't expect a childrens cartoon with perfect dynamic range, its supposed to be played on a medium tv set in a complete chaos childrens room. So the lack of dynamics actually makes the cartoon more understandable, you can just crack up the volume without worrying about sudden loud parts. And believe it or not, cartoons are a perfect way of learning another language as a child.

I shudder to think what kids may learn from toons like "Totally Spies" that features a different sexual fetish in every episode. Sure, kids may not percieve it as such... but it plants the roots.

OK, I'm getting way off topic here.

This is talking about level compression, not coding.

Just so that's clear.

I have, anecdotally, seen some evidence that people who used the older kinds of walkman tape players were doing their hearing harm.

So, can we talk about "compressed music helps preserve your hearing"?
With compressed music/talks in noisy environment I do not need to make it "louder" to hear nuances - it right here.

OOOld discussion:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/20/2029212
http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/vorbis/200...ary/009942.html

Don't seems so mutch realistic, BTW i prefer lossless !

PatchWorKs, please re-read the posts from me and Woodinville, you misunderstood what this topic is about.

Today's music has more dynamic range than most previous music.

The average LP in the 70's could handle maybe 60-65 dB dynamic range between the clipping on the high end and having the content get buried in the record surface noise and rumble on the low end, so sound engineers had to squeeze the 80-90 dB of a symphony orchestra into a much smaller range. (BTW I still have an old analog rack-mount dBx unit left over from those days if anyone is interested).

Yet LP's were dynamic range kings compared to broadcast FM which gets crammed down to 45-50 dB to satisfy US FCC frequency deviation limits. Philips cassette tapes were good for maybe 50-55 dB debending on the NR system being used.

I listen to mostly classical music and most of today's CD's have WAY more dynamic range than anything I could buy in 1975. This is actually a problem because to hear the full range of music you need to have perfectly silent house - no background noise, furnace fan, PC fan, etc, or you won't hear the quitest passages, and if you turn it up to hear the quiet stuff, the loud passages hurt your ears! And of course, you can't listen to classical music in the car, driving at all because the noise floor is too high. Most people have no idea how W I D E 80 dB really is.

I would change that to "Today's media has more dynamic range than previous media". How much of that dynamic range is actually used is the issue.

With the vast majority of these "clipressed" recordings, all of the dynamic range is actually used.

Ok, I would like to see some statistics from you. Can you show me a modern pop CD recording that has a 100 millisecond variation in intensity of more than 20dB, other than at the start and stop of a song?

How many, as a percentage of total CD issues?

Dynamic range does not refer to the ability of the playback mechanism to reproduce a wide dynamic range in the context of this discussion, rather it refers to the actual dynamic range, using the term in the perceptual sense, that is RECORDED on the medium.

In that light, it is provably false that there is more dynamic range today than in 1999. There are better players, the POTENTIAL for better dynamic range is certainly there ...



So, then, I can go out and buy a modern pop CD with music RECORDED on it that has a 40dB dynamic range between PPP and FFF?

Show me.

Certainly the medium can accomodate it. That's not in dispute.

Define dynamic range first.

PPP and FFF do not apply to any technical definition of dynamic range that I have ever seen, sorry!

To give you an example of something that moves towards the direction you seem to be heading, I offer up Wings For Marie (Pt 1) from Tool's 10,000 Days:

Min RMS power: -65.13 dB
Max RMS power: -4.79 dB

These figures were calculated using Audition's default statistics settings.

Yes, and as I said, the classical records of the 1970's can't hold a candle to the classical CD's I buy today WRT dynamic range. Today's classical CD's have more dynamic range that an LP was capable of.

OTOH, rock music has always been designed to be played at a steady loud level - 60's/70's rock classics such as "Smoke on the Water" or "How Many More Times" were not written for the emotional and sonic subtleties that require dynamic range to be expressed. This is not a question of recording engineering - it's a question of what the artist wants. Have you ever been to a club or concert where rock is played? It's LOUD and pretty much stays loud for most of the songs. I never go to a club without wearing in-ear hearing protectors.

Min RMS power carry no info for our case. Most important is Average RMS power.

BTW. How you people judge dyn. range? Is "Peak Value - Average RMS" formula correct enough? Any other variables?

A question for you Vitecs,

How else are to determine how dynamic parts are within a song? We can increase the window if we like and perhaps alter the reference, but prey tell, how do you get two numbers from Average RMS power?

Remember, Woodinville is interested in the difference between pianissimo and fortissimo.

EDIT:

Average RMS does not properly represent pianissimo; the quietest parts of a song are not the average.

Peak Value does not properly represent fortissimo; loud passages shouldn't be measured by looking at the value of a single sample.

I've re-read your message more carefully. Your Min/Max RMS for PPP/FFF have a sense. But somewhat holds me from agree that this is the dynamic range. You concern it as well?

I do not like "Min RMS" in calculations for one obvious reason: even hardly compressed music can have sudden stops. And we will get "good" numbers. Definition of the "perceptual" or "sensorial" dynamic range is something I do not know, but I believe it differs from technical audio definition (max signal - noise floor).

We can get one number from Average RMS Power and other from Peak value. For modern records latter usually is 0dB, so calculation becomes really simple: AvRMS. Maybe replacing "Peak value" with MaxRMS Power leads us to more reliable results?

It is, though I already have an opinion on the matter (fff and ppp doesn't fit this opinion).

These sudden stops don't make up part of the dynamic character of the music? What if they are 1/2 note rests? What if it's a droning sound that adds ambience between loud parts of music (it isn't like I couldn't easily think of music that fits the challenge)?

Read my edit.

I wonder if it includes "AverageRMS Power"?


Yes and No. "Yes" - for music. "No" - for our discussion.

Sometimes I think that audiophilies' "microdynamics" and "macrodynamics" has some sense. At least in part that speaking of music dynamic one should claim what time "window" he/she speaks of. Is it about lead guitar sounds really loud or it's about nice staccato passage...

I simply don't agree on the premise. Dynamic range to me is as you stated it, max peak relative to the noise floor. This is a definition that's always suited me fine in my professional life.

Still:
IOW, sure, I'll play by an alternate set of rules. Tool has "clippressed" music that is still quite dynamic.

In acoustics we talk about dynamic range, both in a "musical sense" and in a "signal processing sense".

I think you can use both, as long as you are clear on which of the two you're talking about.

In all deference, I still stand by what I said...
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=540652

The media is 16-bits and most modern "clippressed" recordings use all 16 of them
EDIT:...and this often true for titles that aren't as compressed as well.

I see, so, first, music is non-technical in your view. I'll let that slide for now.

Now, then, you're the one arguing about dynamic range. Is there, then, some definition you had in mind?

You used it, what's your definition? Are you sticking to the idea of 16 bit PCM here, never mind that no recording I've seen lately uses that dynamic range, in which case the definition is completely, utterly redundant to this discussion, or are you talking about some dynamic range actually observed in a non-zero part of a standardly produced mainstream pop CD of modern production?

Your "min RMS power" lacks a few bits of information.
1) window length
2) weighting (or not)
3) Where does it occur in the song? Are we talking about a silent part of the song?

Leaving all that aside, I have run statistics on more CD's than I even want to consider counting, and I am quite well aware of the dynamic range that most, if not all, modern pop CD's use, and it's very, very little.

Rock music is not the issue here. The Rolling Stones USED more dynamic range in their recordings on LP, for goodness sake.

Oh really? I don't recall making any such statement or implication.

The standard electrical one, do you want an IEC number or something? I hardly think I was being unreasonable in providing you an example to address the alternative you put forward.

For heaven's sake, YES I'm talking about some dynamic range actually observed in a non-zero part of a standardly produced mainstream CD of modern production!!!

Why are you trying to pigeon-hole me to a single genre of music? I used the term "clippressed" not "pop".


Um, no it doesn't:

Oh, please! Get over yourself.

Excuse me? As it happens, I happen to have a copy of Machine Head handy, and the peak to RMS ratio of Smoke on the Water (not remix) is rather larger than that of, oh, say, "La Vida Loca".

If you want to argue rock music, let's stick to the same album, ok? Let's use "Lazy". Or even "Highway Star". It's ironic that you chose Deep Purple as an example here, because they have a well-stablished penchant for individual entry at the beginning of songs that force some dynamic range.

On a purely musical level, furthermore, I challenge the idea that "Lazy", which is a rock classic, has no emotional or sonic subtlety, just for the record.

Let's consider "Smoke on the Water" again. Just at the beginning, we have guitars entering at different times, with substantially increasing energy and loudness (both) as the bass starts up, and then even more in both energy and loudness when the percussion starts.

Compare that, alone, to anything you can find in La Vida Loca off of Ricky Martin, live.

Rock music is not the issue, and it's a red herring here. Bob Katz (and others) have published measurements on peak to RMS ratio of pop recordings. There is clear, present evidence of hypercompression on modern recordings that comes about long after rock music.

Yes, GOOD classical recordings nowdays use more dynamic range. Got many? I find my oldest recordings are most often the best there. Of course, it's also nice to find an artist who plays with some expression instead of "tick tock" accuracy. But I won't dispute personal taste if you like machine-like regularity.

(i.e. I prefer Tennstadt to von Karajan any day...)

Here the context is compressed music and personal listening. How many people listen to Le Deluge on their I-Pod on the subway on the way to work? Not many, I suspect.

Oh, and do keep wearing the hearing protectors. No dispute there. Everybody should. My job will be meaningless if you don't.

So, what is relevant, your feelings, or actual measurements?

Do you happen to have a list of Peak/rms ratios for a variety of music handy? If so, show me, and try to convince me.

There is, of course, a simple problem here, dynamic range has more than one meaning. When talking about compression, we're not talking about the peak to noise floor of a 16 bit PCM word. I think we all know that number to our hearts' content. It's simply not germane to this discussion, and it's not in any dispute that I know of in any knowledgeable circle.

Again, the context is not high-quality classical recordings.

What we're talking about is the dynamics actually present in the modern pop recording, unless you are suggesting that the majority of all people (this is a discussion about a population that might be suffering hearing damage, after all) listen to high-quality, uncompressed classical recordings, and that is what causes the general population's hearing loss. !?!?!?

And, while I haven't personally used the term "clippressed", yeah, it's an interesting word. I use "loudness enhancement" (which also implies nonlinearity, of course).

Just wonder, how it to be the musician... have a seat inside a big orchestra... With one neighbor's trumpet in one ear and other's trombone in other ear. And, make some sounds yourself... Is it comparable to rock band' drummer with monitors? Maybe we call the thread "playing any music causes hearing loss"?

My feelings??? You must be joking!

No, I don't, though you must have them handy since you're familiar with nearly every modern pop title.

Yes this was obvious from your first response.


That wasn't what I was talking about. I was giving a specific response to a statement I saw fom pdq. Sorry to disappoint you.

After mulling over your response to me(*) I thought I might try to "show" you something that you seem to believe doesn't exist. Since you subsequently decided to limit my options (the genre, not the measurement) I guess this something doesn't exist after all.

I personally don't care for the term myself but I know many people here like to use it (hence the use of quotations). Admittedly, I used the term to suggest that samples existed at full-scale.

Do we agree that it's use doesn't reduce that lack of dynamic range of a recording (the uninteresting measurement) nor does it prevent one from producing music that still has dynamics?

EDIT: (*) I didn't even bother to read the first half of your reply where you addressed plnelson until now:

FWIW, what I mean is the difference in dB between the very quietest, teensy bit of sound a musician makes and the very loudest sound the musicians make. Really, why would you use any other definition? If the goal is to accurately reproduce the experience in the concert hall, then you need the ability to accurately reproduce that entire range.

Just a thought: maybe the standard deviation of the average RMS is a good measure for dynamics (I won't use dynamic range because that is confusing, as greynol pointed out).

But the quietest of them comes on loud - WAY above the noise floor. "Smoke on the Water" has no quiet (pianissimo or pianississimo) passages. Dynamic range is the difference in decibels between the loudest and quietest passages in the music, or if you're talking about gear, the difference in decibels between the loudest and quietest passages that it CAN reproduce, i.e., the difference between the noise floor and clipping. Most rock music doesn't employ pianississimo along with fortississimo in the same piece so it's not a big issue for most rock music.

Who cares about pop? And why does it have to be in 100 ms? Almost any piano or violin concerto will have wide variations between when the full orchestra is playing and when the soloist is playing.

You mess "long term" sound pressure difference with the short one. Don't you think that giving to the listener an ability to hear violinist plays PPP solo would be enough to say "record has a great dynamic"?
It's easy to create such record. Much harder is to give us ability to listen to the PPP during, along with band plays hardrock riffs. That is why we usually want 100 ms. Maybe 50 ms or even less.

how is internet not one of these 'bullshit' media?

He didn't suggest 100 ms in his response to me, but I'll redo my measurements with an increased window size.

I have to admit I stopped following the discussion at about the point where people were trying to explain that this topic is not about lossy compression, and only glanced at it to make sure it was going along ok (just as I only glanced at this) and noticed the statement from pdq which I must have taken out of context; MY BAD!!! I have not actually followed the conversation and apologize.

Here's the new data for Tool's Wings For Marie (Pt 1). The window size was increased to 100 ms. The first 4000+ samples of silence was removed. The track is over 6 minutes long and has a gapless transition into the next track, so there was no need to trim anything from the end. There is no silence within the track.

From the right channel:
Min RMS power: -63.75 dB
Max RMS power: -5.74 dB

Aside from the question of whether actual human listeners would be able to hear an instrument playing PPP when the rest of the ensemble is playing FFF, none of this is related to dynamic range. Dynamic range has a clear, standard definition that's been used forever in engineering and it's the one I (and others) have mentioned. If there's a different phenomenon you're trying to describe use a different term for it.

Hmm, let me load up Houses of the Holy here.

So, dynamic range is dB ratio of power?

How about loudness instead of power?

But, of course,you're still dodging the point, which is the loudness creep in pop music, and the question of if that causes harm to the hearing apparatus.

Which leads to a question. Is it intensity or loudness that is a better measure of potential hearing loss?

(And yes, that is a question. I don't know the answer.)

Missed this. Masking results suggest very clearly that under the most sensitive conditions, 30dB NMR in an ERB is the best you can hope for.

If ppp to fff is bigger than that, and the spectra of the instruments do not vary enormously, there is not going to be any issue of audibility.

All of this argument about "uses all the bits" is just off key here, I think. The question could be restated (and perhaps should be) as "how far down from peak is the masking threshold for modern pop vs. older pop". Given that masking threshold seems to follow loudness very well ...