On 2008-09-12, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , John Phillips
wrote:
On 2008-09-10, Jim Lesurf wrote:
I have now put up a page that compares the dynamics and level
compression on FM with that on DAB. The page can be found at

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/DABvs...ewithlike.html

[ 20,000 blank lines snipped! :-) ]

Err, sorry to everyone about that. I'd like to blame the technology
but probably it was more to do with "finger trouble" (but I'd still like
to know how I didn't see that many extra blank lines and understand how
they got there in the first place.)

...
These days I tend to prefer the BBC4 TV Proms to R3. I have gained two
impressions wrt ambience. One is that there often seems to be some LF
noise, perhaps due to air conditioning or passing traffic. However it may
be the audience swaying or breathing! :-)

This year I have not really noticed the same degree of difference between
BBC4 and R3/DAB that I noticed a few years ago. Possibly I have not
been listening to the sound so much and listening to the music instead.
Possibly the BBC's audio processing has got to be more consistent?

...
For perhaps obvious reasons such ambient noise seems louder when there is
something like an extended violin solo. ...

At a Prom a few years ago - Mahler 9th Symphony I think - quiet ending on
the strings: Someone close to me in the stalls swivelled on their seat
and it emitted an unlubricated squeak vastly louder than the orchestra. If
that contribution to the ambience had been from me I think I would have
died from embarrassment. I don't know how it came over on the broadcast.

I do sometimes notice level adjustments on the BBC4 prom broadcasts, but
they give me the feeling they are being done by a human who is following
the score and tweaking with intelligence to make the result. ...

On CD I have a few recordings of live opera from the 1960s where there
is some all-too-obvious level adjustment at times. Keeping the peaks
below the tape's saturation level, I assume. Probably there's more
that goes on which I don't notice because it's done with some musical
sensitivity by someone who "knows the score."

Actually I can recall at least one other example (a 1970 recording IIRC)
that gets very "hot" in places, where they *should* have done this.

--
John Phillips