It happened again yesterday, when I was walking the Rail Trail with Dizzy, listening to tunes on my iPod.
The iPod, set on Genius, gave me Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out," and I had to turn the volume far up to hear it. But the next song -- ABC's "The Look of Love, Part I" (okay, my iTunes library has a lot of emotional '80s stuff) -- was so loud it almost blew out my earphones, and I rushed to turn the volume back down.
Why does this happen? Why are the sound levels on digital recordings so widely divergent, and why can't my super-fancy iPod Touch compensate for this? Why do I spend so much of my walking time fiddling with the volume control on my music player?
It's another gorgeous day here in Central Maine, and Dizzy and I are about to take another walk. I might just listen to a single album today, instead of dealing with the shuffle.
4 comments:
I have that problem with Peter Gabriel's SECURITY album.
And like you, I had this problem reared its ugly head on the rail trail yesterday.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), Pete does this on most of his albums, so the seven or so I picked from vaious Gabriel offerings stayed consistently low.
Which is fine until I get to Phil Collins' "I Don't Care Anymore." If I don't turn the iPod back down, I get bleeding eardrums.
There is an electronic circuit that I was taught to design in college called an automatic gain regulator to compensate for varied signal strength in. I don't think this converts to digital technology very well. I don't own an iPod so I don't know if that circuit is available. Not only that, but by the end of the week, I will not own a working TV. Thank you, Mr. President.
hmm, more ABC? You just can't deny that ABC goodness....
Dad, you can NOT blame the current Administration for the digital TV conversion -- that's been coming for YEARS.
Anyway, don't you have cable? If you have cable, it doesn't affect you at all.
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