Dynamic range - what dynamic range?

[Dave2002]

I quite enjoyed bits of yesterday's Afternoon concert with Mahler's 7, recognisable fairly easily by the mandolin. I was listening via FM on the car radio, but even though the mandolin is a quiet instrument, surely it was amplified out of any reasonable representation of the live performance. I wondered if the various settings in the car system - to compensate for engine noise etc., were having an effect, but no - the balance remained pretty much the same in different settings. The car was mostly stationary anyway. The dynamic range seemed almost non existent, and the balance with particular instruments totally artificial. The final movement sounded hardly any louder than the previous one.

Really not good at all.

[Bryn]

I quite enjoyed bits of yesterday's Afternoon concert with Mahler's 7, recognisable fairly easily by the mandolin. I was listening via FM on the car radio, but even though the mandolin is a quiet instrument, surely it was amplified out of any reasonable representation of the live performance. I wondered if the various settings in the car system - to compensate for engine noise etc., were having an effect, but no - the balance remained pretty much the same in different settings. The car was mostly stationary anyway. The dynamic range seemed almost non existent, and the balance with particular instruments totally artificial. The final movement sounded hardly any louder than the previous one.

Really not good at all.

The recording has a pretty wide dynamic range. I think the problem you detect is down to close miking of the mandolin and questionable quality of mixing by the RTE engineer.



I would just add that the extra-large peak, about a third of the way through, is actually a glitch in the recording, not part of the music itself.

[richardfinegold]

Excellent, Bryn. Nothing further to add

[johnb]

Don't forget that FM uses the dreaded Optimod which boosts quiet passages and mangles the dynamic range.

[Serial_Apologist]

Don't forget that FM uses the dreaded Optimod which boosts quiet passages and mangles the dynamic range.

Was Optimod used for The Proms? For the first time since the mid-80s, I noticed far less dynamic compression this year.