Home Page of John Rock Perga
2008 "Learning To Listen"
I can hear it and something is wrong with the how music sounds today. CD’s of today are mastered too loud. Music sounded so much better when it wasn’t maximized with high output and digital limiting. If you struggle with what I’m talking about then listen to McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full” or Springsteen’s “Magic.” and play them as loud as you can. Then tell me how long before your ears hurt and you get fatigued or develop a headache? It’s not the music which is the sad part. It’s been tagged as the loudness war.
My evolution of listening began with hearing my parents yell “Turn It Down!” I was born with ears that longed for melody. Music was my high. I was born in the age of analog recordings where the sound was modulated into grooves of 78 RPM Gramophone record that my parents played in our home. The phonograph places a hard stylus (needle) in the groove and spins the record. As the stylus rides along the walls of the moving groove, it vibrates back and forth with each ripple in a wall and that current is amplified to reproduce sound. What an invention!
One of my earliest memories was Benny Goodman playing on my parent’s phonograph. I was fascinated both with the way it worked and how it sounded. The first Rock And Roll song I ever heard was Elvis Presley’s “Too Much” on my aunts 78 player. It had a vibrant fidelity that entered the pleasure dome of my brain. It also sounded different than the music my folks listened to. It had a different beat. At two or three years old I was possessed, listening for hours, “stuck” on my rocking horse wearing down those springs into a limp state. Sadly I found out what happened if you dropped “Too Much” on the floor. 78’s records were brittle pieces of plastic that shattered easily when dropped. This was perhaps my first bout of depression, which was only relieved with a trip to the local record store. When I saw Elvis on Ed Sullivan, I was forever changed. I still remember my parent’s reaction to him, however my mom obliged and bought me my first 45 single; “Hound Dog.” Suffice to say, my world of collecting music was born. Rock and Roll songs had haunting hook lines. They would stay in my head just waiting to be recalled though repeated play. And… it sounded great loud. This was my first addiction, and the only addiction that is still with me today. One song is too many, and a thousand never enough.
Record players were manufactured by Zenith or Motorola in the era of the cartridge and stylus. 78 Records soon became obsolete in the mid-fifties and they were replaced by the twelve Inch LP. Originally invented in 1948, a twelve inch LP played for a maximum of 30 to 45 minutes divided over two sides. They had a cover you could hold and you could read everything about everyone you were listening to without a magnifying glass. Local record stores in the late fifties and early sixties were a culturally cool place for hip teenagers to hang out at. Vinyl Records and their covers (Sleeves) were prominently displayed on the walls. I remember all the Top 30 “Singles” 45’s were displayed in bins set at a viewing angle to grab. I can’t state the importance of growing up in an era that revolved around a 3 minute song. DJs on radio discerned what was played, promoted and sold. This part of the industry became corrupt first, hand in hand with record industry promotion men. The 7 inch 45rpm single was a wondrous invention that had a great sound quality. They took a beating as well. Some record changers would allow you to stack them on top of each other and would play them one by one without interruption. The 45 single was the beat of the sixties. The sound jumped at you though the speakers. From Freddy Cannon to The Beach Boys, the 45 single was the greatest medium for a 3 minute pop song especially when it was amplified through the tiny speaker of my AM transistor radio. I can still here the Four Tops singing “I Can’t Help Myself “that sound was so sweet. In the 50’and 60’s many stores were one stop shopping emporiums that sold instruments, sheet music and vinyl records in one place. Most record departments had listening booths with turntables and speakers so you could listen to records before you laid down your hard earned cash. I remember my favorite local music store had a limit of three records you were allowed to take into the glass booth, but the proprietors graciously supplied an ashtray so the record buying youth could smoke cigarettes while sampling the groove.
In 1958 A new format in sound was introduced called “Stereo”. It was music that had been separated into two channels with instruments panned into a “Sound field” that gave an effect that was incredible. I remember RCA records called it “Living Stereo” It was quite a revelation in sound. The first stereo LP I ever heard was “Elvis Is Back” It sounded vivid sitting between to speakers. It was incredible to hear the instruments separated into different channels. Headphones were the way to really witness this new realm of sound. The British Invasion struck and high fidelity progressed, both in engineering and production. There was a big difference between the recordings of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Aka: Stereo sound VS Mono recordings. Some of the recording of this era was quite a head of their time. The differences in recording techniques varied from the American shores to the British Isles. On many recordings, vocals were placed on one channel and the music on the other. This gave you the ability to use the balance knob to become the singer. Then some engineer invented reprocessed stereo. This was done by adding echo with separating treble on one side and bass on the other. Some of Elvis’s catalogue and the early British recordings were ruined by this fake sounding process that enabled a record company to stamp stereo on a cover to make more profit. Stereo cost a dollar more. The 12 inch vinyl LP held the voice of the sixties as it became the catalyst to carry the message of our culture. The Vinyl LP became the strong hold in marketing for the recording industry for years as the industry squeezed more grooves and charged more every year. The use of virgin vinyl became history as recycled vinyl had an inferior sound quality. Many other formats were introduced to the consumers over the decades from Reel to reel tapes (1954), 8 Tracks cassettes (1964) and Cassettes (1964) Tapes were first to be embraced by the automobile industry, especially 8 track and cassettes. I found them to have some advantages over Vinyl. Tapes had no surface noise but contained hiss. The drawbacks were tapes could stretch and break. In 1970 Quadraphonic sound was introduced as a new format (LP’s & Tapes) that took stereo beyond two channels for a total of four. Quadraphonic music was never bought by the mass population but and has remained with audiophiles for years.
The 12 LP held its position as the format of choice though the 70’s and early 80’s. Vinyl records could easily be scratched and most were manufactured with surface noise. This was generally due to the music industry using cheap vinyl. I spent thousands of dollars purchasing Vinyl. I was one of those kids that made Russ Solomon’s Tower Records rich. His employees would cringe when they saw me coming to return defective records. I spent hours of my of life returning vinyl that was manufactured full of surface noise or warped from improper storage. This is when I started to figured out that the music industry didn’t really give a shit. They pumped out the product for their own profit and manufactured shit on top of it at the expense of the artists who were paid a much smaller percentage. This was the beginning of the greed that has since backfired on the whole music industry. My LP collection grew to about 10,000 in 1983. Then along came the invention of the digital compact disc and everything changed.
Analog sound verses digital sound what can I say? A digital recording is produced by converting the physical properties of a recording into digital bits that are stored on a disc for play back. Many other inventions have come into play that has affected the dynamics of the audio world. Dolby was one of the first to take sound and attempt to reduce noise, with some liabilities in my own opinion. When you remove that noise, you also remove some of the music. I must state I’m not a schooled engineer but I know what my ears can hear.
I bought my First CD in 1983, just when the industry slowly started to release their older catalogue items. I then began trading off my LP’s For CD’s. I traded and sold 9000 LP’s by 1994. This was the beginning of the end for me. I didn’t realize I had made a mistake until a decade later. My CD collection grew by leaps and bounds and the vinyl collection slowly diminished to 1000 LP’s. Part of my rationalization for doing this was my dissatisfaction with the quality of vinyl. Then one sober day in 1998 I got out an LP, put it on the turntable and gave it a spin. I was flabbergasted and shocked. After listening to CD’s for years I came to a realization that vinyl records have a warmer sound that no other format can emulate. The Audio and Video Industry has seen many great advances in the last 10 years. VHS to DVD resulted in the same transition for me as LP’s to CD’s. VHS tapes had many liabilities. I have no remorse to VHS video tapes. 5.1 Sound, PCM, and Lossless sound have found a home on DVD-Audio and HD DVD formats. The war of HD ended with Blu-Ray Disc prevailing after a manufacturing battle with the motion picture industry taking up opposite sides of Hollywood. Did anybody really win? Now we have the MP3, a sound format for IPods and computers. This is a user friendly format that is a lower quality digital file that has become the accepted norm. This is the preferred format of the world market. But does the world today care about sound quality?
A few years ago my battle against the loudness war began when I first noticed a pattern of loudness in newly released CD’s when driving in my car. I could not listen very long and I was turning the volume of CD’s down. I became fatigued and worn out as a listener. After some investigation from audio forums I found out what was really happening. My ears hurt due to the level that CD’s are mastered at. If maximizing is combined with compression, it changes the way music sounds. Sadly a picture can’t lie. If you look at the sound waves in audio editing software there are no hills and no valleys to look upon. It’s been tagged as being brick walled. There are no soft spots. So thinking louder is better has become the standard of today’s new releases and it sounds like shit.
A year ago I built an all digital 110 watt 7.1 sound system attached to a Sony HD 50 inch SXRD television. We are in the golden age of video. The sad fact is, I still wasn’t happy when I listened to music through this system. This led me to restoring a vintage 40 year old tube amplifier and speakers. This is where all of today’s advanced technology has led me. Now I once again can hear warm sweet sounds that I have missed.
So in this awakening I have spent a small fortune and a year in an obsessive quest to find many of the original un-remastered CD’s that I once owned. So will this loudness war ever end? Will this increase the already decline of the music industry? Will this new dynamic range decrease until the answer is silence? Will the loudness converge until it explodes into 0 db? Is there an evil demon asking us to embrace the loudness? I spent most of a lifetime turning it up to now having to turn it down. Just so I can hear. So I have learned to listen, and listened to learn. More to be revealed.
