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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: The dynamic range of our playback

Post Subject: Most music avoids large dynamic swingsPosted by steverino on: 6/28/2014

We are so overly familiar with the music of the Romantic era (and to a lesser extent with some 20th century orchestral music) that we tend to overestimate the importance of dynamics overall in music and in listening. Obviously, abrupt and frequent dynamic changes are used to increase tension and excitement. Beethoven made them a much more central part of his music and many later composers followed his lead apart from Debussy and a few others. Prior to that there were what I would call plateaued dynamics (soft loud alternations in Baroque music) or simply a dichotomy between soft and loud music pieces that existed from the Middle Ages. Pop music has always avoided that kind of dynamic contrast and simply playing louder constantly is not dynamics. I think many listeners who aren't fans of large orchestral works find frequent dynamic contrasts to be unsettling and tiring over and above overall sound levels. Mild dynamic compression on recordings often makes them seem more listenable, not less.

It is not only that musical instruments change their timbre and overtone structure at higher decibels but also that human auditory and emotional reactions change too. We simply do not hear loud passages the way we hear softer ones. Then of course speakers and amplifiers are stressed by sudden changes in output as a car or plane would be if you sped up and slowed down constantly. Sudden transients can easily overload an amp or speaker for a split second before the steady phase of the note commences. I am always struck in the concert hall how much large dynamic shifts are minimized compared even to the best audio systems. The complete lack of system distortion rather masks the change of dynamics except at extreme sound levels.

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