The Purpose of The Honor Roll

• to help combat the sound-debilitating loudness war. The absence of post-1990 CDs on this Honor roll is a sad commentary on the sonic casualties of this war.


• to demonstrate that tasteful dynamic range, transients, and microdynamics are an important part of the art and enjoyment of music


• to demonstrate that monitor control position and sound quality are often related


• to give examples of a quality standard, presenting some of the best-sounding popular CDs ever made, which mix engineers can emulate and which are not squashed


• to show examples of mastered CDs which are hotter than one might want to mix but whose loudness was achieved without seriously affecting the musical and sonic goal of the record


• to give examples of CDs which sound great on the radio and in the living room, have not so hot levels, and which we can use to demonstrate to producers and A&R the futility of trying to match current insane absolute loudness levels

quote:

---

'Madonna' - 'Till Death Do Us Part' from the 'Like a Prayer' album. Test of dynamics and low level resolution.

Interesting one this. As Madonna sings - 'He's not a lover anymore', she says - 'He's not in love with her anymore'. The level of this spoken part slightly increases as the record continues so you should hear it and what she says clearly, the word to watch out for is "He's" which gets swallowed in the mix. When comparing two components one will let you do this earlier in the record than the other and this will have the better dynamics - the loud singing doesn't mask the spoken word - and the better definition - the words can not just be heard but picked out and understood.

---