Re: Interesting Chart
2014/03/21 03:09:13
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I have to wonder if they aren't getting a little over-zealous on the "always moar dynamic range!" thing. Like having 10dB be a "yellow" range and so on. For example I took a look at a bit I was messing with from Pictures at an Exhibition. Pure piano piece, done using one of Kontakt's pianos and QL Spaces. It was me testing my toys and has no compression, no limiting, it is effectively a full dynamic range recording of a piano playing a pretty varied piece. The result? 12LU of dynamic range (according to Sound Forge). Barely on the "good" side in the chart above, and not in the "good" range on the linked site.
I am all for an end to the absurd loudness war and limiting things to hell and gone, but it doesn't mean that the right answer is always more dynamics, particularly because some instruments (like some synthesizers) may not have that much dynamic range, and some pieces may not use it.
Likewise going too overboard on dynamic range could cause a problem on more budget systems. Whatever dynamic range you want, you have to take your listening volume, and add the DR to it, and the system has to be able to handle that level to sound good. So if you want to listen at 85dB average, and you have a 20dB DR, your system needs to be able to handle 105dB without distortion if you want good sound. That's doable, but it takes some legs. My system is capable of it, barely, and is a multi-thousand dollar HT setup.
Remember that with amps, it is double the wattage for 3dB of gain in output. If a given amp/speaker setup can do 80dB at 1 watt, then it is 2 watts to hit 83dB, but 64 watts to hit 95dB and 512 watts to hit 104dB. So another 10dB in dynamic range can be the difference between a nice small amp like you find in most receivers and the need for a massive external amp.
I just think a goal of moderation might better serve the adoption of such a thing in the long run rather than moar = bettar than. Asking systems to do around 10dBish of dynamic range isn't too bad. You don't need to toss too much hardware at things to make that happen. That also still sounds pretty darn nice on a good system.