<story><title>They Don’t Make Music Like They Used To</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/what-these-grammy-songs-tell-us-about-the-loudness-wars.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>puranjay</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m an amateur musician. One of the more common pieces of advice you&amp;#x27;ll see floating around in the community is to make your music &amp;quot;louder&amp;quot;, especially if you&amp;#x27;re creating electronic music of any form.&lt;p&gt;Two reasons for this:&lt;p&gt;1. More and more people are listening to music through equipment that is significantly inferior. Mobile phones, cheap Bluetooth speakers, cheap earphones - they&amp;#x27;re all subpar in their ability to render sound faithfully.&lt;p&gt;2. There is a constant &amp;quot;war for loudness&amp;quot;. Once you&amp;#x27;ve listened to a David Guetta song that can be ferociously loud, anything not as loud will be perceived as &amp;quot;soft&amp;quot; that &amp;quot;kills the vibe&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>They Don’t Make Music Like They Used To</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/what-these-grammy-songs-tell-us-about-the-loudness-wars.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cmurphycode</author><text>I think that an underrated factor in the dynamic range compression is the way we listen to music. I&amp;#x27;m not sure if it&amp;#x27;s accurate to say that the average quality of listening devices (that is, speakers&amp;#x2F;headphones) has decreased, but certainly it has become more common to hear music through bad earbuds, tinny smartphone speakers, or laptops simply because those devices are so prevalent.&lt;p&gt;In these settings, music with lots of dynamic range may legitimately not sound as good. Due to the quality of reproduction, the low-loudness parts are hard to perceive.&lt;p&gt;For me, there are certainly songs that I enjoy listening to on good headphones in a quiet room that don&amp;#x27;t have anywhere near the impact when played on laptop speakers.</text></comment>