BÖC - Imaginos cd release

[desert_demon]

Very interesting article, Hawk. This is not the first time that I've come across the "loudness wars" and I admit I was one of the ones that was fooled into thinking that louder was better. After reading articles similar to the one you linked I realised my mistake. That's one of the reasons that I've hesitated buying Led Zeppelin's "Mothership" compilation. After reading some Amazon.com reviews, many fans praise the "improved" sound while a minority pan the CD for being too compressed.
I will agree with TSORL on one thing, many of my 80's CDs sound rather flat and "un-loud" (Example: Testament's first album).
As metal fans that we all are we like our music loud. But even in metal dynamics play an important part so I will still prefer quality of sound over loudness.

 

[Trans-Siberian Outcast]

I leave for a few days and this thread turns into a loudness war! Egads. I'm going to play Imaginos on WinAmp next chance I get and see if that helps the volume level.

@Hawk: Thanks for the article/video links, I knew all that but sometimes need to be reminded that louder is not always better. But your comment on the volume knob being your own control doesn't help with this cd, because the recording is just tooooooo low, at least for my computer system speakers. Like I said in the earlier post, I had my system maxed out volume-wise, and it was still just barely loud enough to be enjoyable. That's too low IMO.

Point is well taken though, this new version of Imaginos might be remastered at the sacrifice of the full-bodied sound, and that's even more unacceptable to me than the super-low volume copy I have now. Or maybe they did a good job, I guess the jury is still out on that one until someone here gets both copies and compares them.