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It was only ever true by an extremely specific, now outdated, definition of loudness. Basically commercials back then would have the audio extremely compressed,
by entropicdrifter 1y ago
It was only ever true by an extremely specific, now outdated, definition of loudness. Basically commercials back then would have the audio extremely compressed, such that they were always at the maximum possible volume allowable by your system at a given volume setting, whereas content mixed to be enjoyed would be mixed such that there are louder and quieter moments, which is both gentler on the ear and more dynamic.
You know how movies are mixed such that they have really quiet dialogue and big explosions are like 4-5x as loud? Commercials are in explosion-mode the whole time.
So yeah, commercials are mixed louder than the rest of the content on purpose, just to try to snag your attention. If they could, advertisers would come into your house and turn the volume on your AV receiver/soundbar/tv/computer/phone way up themselves.
- jonny_eh 1y agoMusic albums have been suffering by dynamic range compression as well. They apparently sell better since they sound louder, but information is lost in the process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- laughing_man 1y agoAs I understand it radio stations used to like "loud" albums because people can't hear the quiet parts in their car as a result of road and engine noise. And people bought what they heard on the radio, generally. I'm not sure that's still true. Music fans seem to be pretty heavily siloed, so they're probably discovering music through the internet somehow and not radio.
- jonny_eh 1y agoThat's the leading theory for why CDs started to get compressed. It happened right after portable and car CD players hit the scene in the early nineties.
- entropicdrifter 1y agoThis has mostly ended in most genres of music due to audio volume normalization algorithms in streaming platforms like Spotify and Tidal.