Sound quality of new D/T

[aglenn01]

I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc.  It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!

[The Letter M]

I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc.  It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!

More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.

-Marc.

[TheGreatPretender]

More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.

-Marc.

Yeah, I'm quite sure that it's almost entirely a mastering thing.
I mean, if you listen to HD Tracks version of, say, Systematic Chaos, or DT12, they open things up dynamically in a big way. But really, it is still the same mix.
I had an opportunity to master a soundtrack that was already premixed (the only thing I've ever had a chance to master, so I have virtually no experience or expertise in the field, in case you're wondering), and yeah, it was all in my hands. If I wanted to, I could've compressed the crap out of it (which I didn't).

[aglenn01]

Awesome guys, I am not technically savvy enough to discern between the mastering and the mixing! Thanks for the insight. I guess what I am getting at is that I just want the fucking records to sound good when I listen to them,, and let each member of the band do their thing. My point was that their are so many albums from the past that sound great, and yet now it's like trying to crack the nuclear code to make a record SOUND GOOD!! I mean if the guys from the 70's and 80's could do it, why cannot we do it now?? Jesus, we can shoot a fuckin dunebuggy from Earth and have it land on Mars, but can't figure out how to make a record that sounds good???

[KevShmev]

Awesome guys, I am not technically savvy enough to discern between the mastering and the mixing! Thanks for the insight. I guess what I am getting at is that I just want the fucking records to sound good when I listen to them,, and let each member of the band do their thing. My point was that their are so many albums from the past that sound great, and yet now it's like trying to crack the nuclear code to make a record SOUND GOOD!! I mean if the guys from the 70's and 80's could do it, why cannot we do it now?? Jesus, we can shoot a fuckin dunebuggy from Earth and have it land on Mars, but can't figure out how to make a record that sounds good???

It's maddening, I know.  Despite it being mixed very hot, I don't have a big problem with the sound of the new album, although I'd love a more dynamic version.  That said, the other day I had some DT on shuffle in the car and one of the new songs came right after a song from Awake, and the drop-off in sound quality was really obvious when listening to the two songs back-to-back. 

The real pisser is that the hot and compressed versions are the normal releases, and then fans of us who care about albums actually sounding good on a real stereo, as opposed to these stupid mixes that are meant to appeal to the jugheads who only care about it sounding good on their ear buds when hooked up to their iPhone, have to go out of our way and spend more money to get the better-sounding version.  It is disappointing.

[Dedalus]

I really don't understand the details about this "Loudness War" thing. I've believed it was a matter of dynamic range, until I started to check the data on albums with zero sound complaint and realized that they also have a horrible DR scores (like Haken's Vector).

[ytserush]

Have to say I'm not too thrilled with the dynamic range of this (Kind of reminds me of Systematic Chaos, my least favorite album, in that regard.)

That's one of the few aspects of this album I don't like. I'd love to hear something better. Haven't put the instrumental version of this in the CD player yet. Want to get used to it vocally first.

[erwinrafael]

My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity.

This always baffles me. I understand the issues about compression, but I haven't heard a DT album where you can not hear JM's bass clearly.

As for the Loudness Wars, I have read a lot of times that the kicker really was the change in the listening habits of people. The culprit really is Apple when they introduced the concept of a shuffled playlist and the concept took off. When you are in a sea of shuffled music almost all of which have a hot master, the "good-sounding" songs become bothersome because one has to crank up the volume to hear the song properly. I recently had this experience when I was listening to a shuffled playlist and suddenly a Steven Wilson song came up, and I indeed has to pause momentarily what I am doing to turn up the volume and then after the song ends, turn down the volume again because the next song is hotly mastered.

Now it can be said that DT can just follow the lead of somebody like SW or Haken and just come up with good-sounding records to hell with shuffled playlists, but the band's situation is different. They are a relatively much more popular act than those two  and their songs are included in thousands of shuffled playlists everyday (just look at Spotify). They are sort of being forced to engage in this Loudness War.

[erciccio]

Well, overall I don't care too much, I've never complained about the sound quality of any album (ehm...with one Metallica exception maybe...) and a bad sound quality never destroyed the value of the underlying music for me.

But...if asked a direct question on the sound quality of D/T, for me it's the worst ever by Dream Theater.

I listened back to DT12 just after D/T, and IMHO they are pretty similar as concerns the overall sound, with D/T being significantly worst due to the vocal mix, that is way too low for my tastes.
Probably only Myung is marginally better on D/T, but the issue with the voice destroys any marginal improvement with the bass.

I think it's due to a combination of musical direction (e.g. filters on the voice, many low tuning guitars), recording (e.g. still the drum snare lacks dynamics...), mixing (voice too low) and mastering (loudness war).

I personally don't like this kind of direction in "producing" music, but my overall impression is that Dream Theater and Petrucci in general are satisfied with it, and they don't understand all the critics because they honestly like the sound as it is today.

I also think it is correlated with the increase amount of songs written on 7 strings/ 6 strings with low tuning, that is one other thing I don't love about modern Dream Theater music (yeah, I am and I&W fan... )

 

[erwinrafael]

I don't get the complaint about the dynamics of the snare. S2n's ghost notes not enough dynamics?

[erciccio]

I don't get the complaint about the dynamics of the snare. S2n's ghost notes not enough dynamics?

Well, I am not a big fan of Rush overall, but I just listened back to Animate (because my memory told me that there where "nice ghost note" there..) and, well, I like that kind of "dynamics" on the snare way more that S2N.

As everything in this discussion, I think it's mainly a question of taste and impossible to "prove"...

[darkshade]

To me it's the best sounding album since Octavarium, but doesn't sound as good as any album before Systematic Chaos. However, it's the first DT album since 8vm where I feel like the sound of the band is 'free-er' if that makes sense, more open. What sets it apart is JLB vocals, don't sound like they belong in the songs sometimes, too processed, I'm not really thrilled with JLB's vocals on any Mangini albums mainly due to all the post-production work and recording in Canada, especially on DoT. He sounded best on TA.

[darkshade]

It would be interesting to see if DT can write an entire album with JP only using a normal 6 string, preferably all standard tuning, so long as JP isn't feeling too metal about things, because then it would probably sound like a Metallica album, as that's what I'd be 'concerned' about. I doubt he'd do it.

[darkshade]

My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity.

This always baffles me. I understand the issues about compression, but I haven't heard a DT album where you can not hear JM's bass clearly.

As for the Loudness Wars, I have read a lot of times that the kicker really was the change in the listening habits of people. The culprit really is Apple when they introduced the concept of a shuffled playlist and the concept took off. When you are in a sea of shuffled music almost all of which have a hot master, the "good-sounding" songs become bothersome because one has to crank up the volume to hear the song properly. I recently had this experience when I was listening to a shuffled playlist and suddenly a Steven Wilson song came up, and I indeed has to pause momentarily what I am doing to turn up the volume and then after the song ends, turn down the volume again because the next song is hotly mastered.

Now it can be said that DT can just follow the lead of somebody like SW or Haken and just come up with good-sounding records to hell with shuffled playlists, but the band's situation is different. They are a relatively much more popular act than those two  and their songs are included in thousands of shuffled playlists everyday (just look at Spotify). They are sort of being forced to engage in this Loudness War.

I'm surprised as I thought Inside Out didn't engage in those shenanigans.

[MirrorMask]

I admit my blissful ignorance when it comes to audio matters, but the new record sounds just fine to me.

[emtee]

Best sounding album since 8V for me. Far and away superior to
all MM albums. Absolutely love it!

[Thoughtspart3]

I really like this album too but the sound does detract from it.  The compression kills the feel of the music.  I also think JL is mixed too low.  I also think JR is too low.  Even when there is just the piano it feels weak and when the guitars kick in there is a huge difference. 

A simple solution is just to release and audiophile version from the beginning.  When everyone has the two to compare side by side the compressed versions will be seen for the the crap they are and perceptions will change. As of now most people don't know the difference.  Some don't care which is fine. 

[Pettor]

My personal feeling is that people put to much faith into http://dr.loudness-war.info/ and pages like this. Low DR doesn't even have to be worse than high imo (like swearing in church I get that). When clipping happens it's ofc not acceptable but a riffy album like D/T can easily get away with low DR for me, I even prefer it. Pink Floyd Shine on You Crazy Diamond (which comes to mind as a song I have with very high DR) is an awesome song but damn it's hard to listen to without the correct surroundings.

D/T I find have an excellent overall sound. Every instrument is audible (what is this thing that JL is low?) and the overall sound characteristic is just my cup of tea. I can't hear any clipping. Actually the best in a long time for DT. And this thing that JM isn't audible, are people listening with low quality equipment? Because in the end that is the most important part of it as well. I have a 100$ headphone and 400$ headphone, ofc the audio on the later ones are a lot better. Good equipment will be multiple times more efficient than downloading a HDtrack version. Ofc you can/should have both but don't stare blindly into the loudness and DR quality as a measurement of sound quality.

[Thoughtspart3]

Did anyone else an emotional reaction to the second ending in At Wits End?  Even though it was a raw recording from the studio it "felt" very emotional.  In some ways more so than the actual song. You also can clearly hear all of the instruments.  So, I guess there is a comparison on the album itself.  This type of feel can be captured in a more produced version but I have no idea how engineers can live with themselves by taking that feeling out of the music.

The OP is right that some older albums sound more crisp, clear, and energetic than current albums.   

[adamack]

I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc.  It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!

More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.

-Marc.

Yes you got it. Modern mastering includes squeezing as much volume out of the mix as possible, using limiters to bring all of the lower stuff up, while bringing the peaks down. A maximum decibel limit is set, so that nothing can pass this threshold. This raises the overall volume of everything, averaging the volume and preventing the peaks from clipping.

The problem is that when this is done, you can lose the dynamics of the sound, and cause everything to sound too flat.

As for the OP post, I agree with your sentiment here. I've thought SO many times, "how can a band of this caliber think that DT12 sounds good?"

With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound. I've actually tried to do a new mix on a couple of the songs myself, but you are very limited only having the single track. Would have been awesome if they released the stems for every instrument.

Which leads me to DT12 and TA. Over-compressed garbage of a mix with a TERRIBLE triggered drum sound. It wasn't as muddy as ADTOE, but it just sounded too polished.

D/T sounds incredible! Drums sound big but not triggered. The bass sounds better than ever - it maintains a very tonal quality but also shines in the sub range. JP's lead tones are just amazing. JLB's vocal mix isn't the best I've heard, but it's not bad. And the clarity + separation of the mix is much improved.

[rumborak]

I don't get the complaint about the dynamics of the snare. S2n's ghost notes not enough dynamics?

So, I'm listening to the instrumental album right now, with good headphones ... and I don't hear any ghost notes in S2N. Can you point out specific occasions of them?

[Max Kuehnau]

I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc.  It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!

More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.

-Marc.

Yes you got it. Modern mastering includes squeezing as much volume out of the mix as possible, using limiters to bring all of the lower stuff up, while bringing the peaks down. A maximum decibel limit is set, so that nothing can pass this threshold. This raises the overall volume of everything, averaging the volume and preventing the peaks from clipping.

The problem is that when this is done, you can lose the dynamics of the sound, and cause everything to sound too flat.

As for the OP post, I agree with your sentiment here. I've thought SO many times, "how can a band of this caliber think that DT12 sounds good?"

With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound. I've actually tried to do a new mix on a couple of the songs myself, but you are very limited only having the single track. Would have been awesome if they released the stems for every instrument.

Which leads me to DT12 and TA. Over-compressed garbage of a mix with a TERRIBLE triggered drum sound. It wasn't as muddy as ADTOE, but it just sounded too polished.

D/T sounds incredible! Drums sound big but not triggered. The bass sounds better than ever - it maintains a very tonal quality but also shines in the sub range. JP's lead tones are just amazing. JLB's vocal mix isn't the best I've heard, but it's not bad. And the clarity + separation of the mix is much improved.

there is no such thing as sounding too polished. Ever.

[KevShmev]

With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound.

Mike Portnoy playing on that album would have truly been a dramatic turn of events.

[Groundhog]

I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc.  It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!

More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.

-Marc.

Yes you got it. Modern mastering includes squeezing as much volume out of the mix as possible, using limiters to bring all of the lower stuff up, while bringing the peaks down. A maximum decibel limit is set, so that nothing can pass this threshold. This raises the overall volume of everything, averaging the volume and preventing the peaks from clipping.

The problem is that when this is done, you can lose the dynamics of the sound, and cause everything to sound too flat.

As for the OP post, I agree with your sentiment here. I've thought SO many times, "how can a band of this caliber think that DT12 sounds good?"

With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound. I've actually tried to do a new mix on a couple of the songs myself, but you are very limited only having the single track. Would have been awesome if they released the stems for every instrument.

Which leads me to DT12 and TA. Over-compressed garbage of a mix with a TERRIBLE triggered drum sound. It wasn't as muddy as ADTOE, but it just sounded too polished.

D/T sounds incredible! Drums sound big but not triggered. The bass sounds better than ever - it maintains a very tonal quality but also shines in the sub range. JP's lead tones are just amazing. JLB's vocal mix isn't the best I've heard, but it's not bad. And the clarity + separation of the mix is much improved.

there is no such thing as sounding too polished. Ever.

Sure there is. For me too polished means that a sound of an instrument has been processed so clean that the sound loses texture and starts to lose the sound of a real instrument. The sound can certainly be too sterile to lose that live feel of the band and the instruments. This is how I feel about the sound of TA. It has a nice mix, but it just sounds so dull because of being too polished and lacking in dynamic range. I think it is also a weird production choice for a metal or rock music as this kind of music should at least have some grit.

I think that D/T sounds quite good but that is only on the blu-ray and presumably on vinyl too but haven't heard that yet. The CD version is brighter, harsher and has some audible distortion so I am not inclined to listen to that. I just need to rip the BD stereo track to play it on the go. Although the blu-ray has better dynamics and more warmth to the sound it still seems to be a tad loud for some reason. The vocal mix / production also takes the sound a notch down, but overall the sound is an improvement over the RR and MM era albums.

Mastering is the stage where the dynamic range compression is usually done, but I've heard that in some cases this has already been done during mixing process. And sometimes it can affect the mixing process when it is known that the album will be compressed in mastering stage so they mix it that in mind.

[Samsara]

I don't have anything to really add on the technical end, everyone seems to have summed it up.

But I do agree wholeheartedly that DoT is the best sounding Dream Theater record in a LONG time. I was very pleased when I saw Ben Grosse listed as the mixer. He's mixed some albums I really enjoy and I love the sound he gets. The first Alter Bridge record, One Day Remains, comes to mind immediately.

[TheGreatPretender]

Although above I stated my preference for dynamic range, and I stand by that, I'm also savvy enough to tweak the dynamic range to my liking. So I can take my MP3s, the most dynamic music I have, and put a limiter on it if I wanted to. Why would I do that? Well, mostly for travel, if I have to be on a loud bus or train, I want to be able to hear all the parts. But not everyone has that luxury, not everyone knows how to edit audio files and compress them properly, or things like that. And even if they knew how, they wouldn't be able to with streaming services anyway. The fact is, they mentioned that they... Well, Jimmy T, said that he wanted an album that would sound optimal on the biggest amount of formats, including different types of headphones, streaming, varied bit rates, etc. The thing is, to find the best middle ground for all of those things, I think it's inevitable that the absolute purest of audiophile formats would have to take a bit of a sacrifice.

When you are an audiophile, you can easily say, "How could they take such wonderful music and compress it so much? It's criminal," but the simple truth is that the vast majority of music consumers are not audiophiles, and Dream Theater caters to more than just a hardcore niche demographic. Funny enough, they just posted on Facebook, proclaiming that Distance Over Time got over 10 million streams on Spotify. They're obviously excited by this figure, and it does prove that a lot of people listen to them on Spotify, for better or for worse. The bottom line is, they are a commercial band and they're catering to a larger demographic than just people with big, expensive hi-fi systems, studio monitors, and headphones.

I think the fact that they're releasing their music on vinyl, and in several other formats on the Blu-Ray is proof that they do want to appease the demographic that really cares about dynamics and sound quality, but the album itself, its standard master that appears on the CD and on streaming and download services, that's for the common consumer and it has to accommodate people who are going to be streaming it on their smartphone, while traversing noisy places. All I'm saying is that the way it's been mastered, I think, is completely justified based on that reasoning.

[Volante99]

It’s definitely a step back from TA as far as overall sound quality goes.

Personally, I think brickwall compression on your album is inexcusable and it’s BS I have to buy a Blu-Ray to get high quality audio. DT have had issues with most of their releases but at the end of the day they are the artists and this is what they feel best represents their vision, so it is what it is.

[RaiseTheKnife]

The mix on D/T is much improved, but the mastering ruins much of my listening experience.  I would certainly buy a more dynamic version if made available.

[TheGreatPretender]

It’s definitely a step back from TA as far as overall sound quality goes.

Personally, I think brickwall compression on your album is inexcusable and it’s BS I have to buy a Blu-Ray to get high quality audio. DT have had issues with most of their releases but at the end of the day they are the artists and this is what they feel best represents their vision, so it is what it is.

I'm not arguing at all. More dynamics = better, as far as I'm concerned, and, pretty much just objectively better. But just humor the flip side of the situation, someone who uses Spotify, or even someone who downloads from iTunes or rips their CD, puts the music on, while on a noisy bus, and half of the album ends up being too quiet for them to hear all the parts. And this is how they listen to music, almost exclusively. If they don't really have music and sound know how, they'll probably just think it's too quiet and never play it again. That's not something DT can afford, I don't think. I tried listening to King Crimson on a train once, and I could barely hear half of the Larks Tongues in Aspic album, even at maximum volume.

Personally, I think the real solution to this would be if the music software for modern portable devices, like smart phones, etc, had a built in real-time limiter function, that processes the audio signal and compresses it on the fly, something that a person who knows and cares about dynamics would know how to toggle on and off if they want. That way, we can have music that has broad dynamic range, and the software that plays it can compress it for those who need it louder due to their surroundings. But that would require a common goal, attitude, and synergy between record labels, music distributors, and their software engineers, and I don't think any of them care enough to try and push for something like that.

[lovethedrake]

how do we get HD tracks and what type of medium would I need to listen to them?

I'm curious to hear.   Do they make a huge difference?

I love D/T and think the sound is a big improvement over their last several releases.

[RaiseTheKnife]

how do we get HD tracks and what type of medium would I need to listen to them?

I'm curious to hear.   Do they make a huge difference?

I love D/T and think the sound is a big improvement over their last several releases.

The HD tracks version currently available uses the same master, unlike some prior HD offerings, and therefore is not an improvement on the sonic quality.

[Dedalus]

I insist: why does everyone talk so much about DR?
I can't understand why many complain about the dynamics on the latest records and don't complain about the dynamics in an album like FII (FII's DR is the same as in d/t).

It can't be just that.

[RaiseTheKnife]

When I listen to the kick drum in D/T vs. the kick drum in FII, I can feel a seismic difference.  The busy sections where the snare and guitars share a fill are not garbled in the older catalog recordings.

[Dedalus]

When I listen to the kick drum in D/T vs. the kick drum in FII, I can feel a seismic difference.  The busy sections where the snare and guitars share a fill are not garbled in the older catalog recordings.

Fair enough. But, doesn't change the fact the average dynamic range is the same. The way we feel things is irrelevant to objectively answering the question. If DR is the "answer", similar scores should have similar results.

[rumborak]

The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.