When I first heard Death Magnetic, I was listening on my computer at work with the cheapo earbuds that came as a toss-in with my laptop (Creative EP-630‘s). Actually, they’re quite nice for cheapos- I’ve tried many similar in-ear buds by Sony, Apple, Sennheiser, and Koss, but these are the best. But I digress. That first listen was marred by frequent clipping and distortion that I associated with the earbuds. No biggie, I’m used to listening to demo-quality stuff and web streams. Today, however, I broke out the custom-molded ear monitors to take another listen. Sure enough, it sounds even worse. I would wonder why, but I had already read the news- the loudness war has taken another casualty.
The problem is due to studios and engineers trying to “pump up the volume” on recordings by limiting, compressing and amplifying a recording to squeeze the most volume into the bandwidth. Already, some listeners complain about the loss of dynamic range due to this processing. Do too much, and you end up with something that sounds like Death Magnetic.
Mastering engineer, Ian Sheperd, in his blog, illustrates how the version included in Guitar Hero is actually less compressed, limited and/or clipped.
Simply loading samples form the album version and the Guitar Hero version, and displaying their waveforms together, he’s shown the lack of dynamic range in the release version. The GH version is available as a downlaod for $18 online.
Audiophiles and engineers aren’t the only ones to complain. Fans have started a petition to get the album re-mixed or remastered (even though forum post supposedly quoting Ted Jensen, head engineer at the studio that mastered Death Magnetic, claims the mixes were already peaked when they went for mastering). Over 4,000 fans have signed the online petition so far.
Personally, I think the bad sound quality ruins the album- not that I think it’s their best work at all, but this just makes it not worth buying. Who wants to pay retail for a CD that sounds a bit like a bootleg copy anyway?
