• iocase@lemmy.zip
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    11 days ago

    They even figured out a way to get around decibel laws.

    Human hearing is most sensitive within a certain range where we disproportionately hear those sounds louder than other frequencies. Advertisers would boost that range up and cut frequencies elsewhere to lower the average energy in the audio wave to be compliant with advertisement decibel ratings. The perceived sound could be multiple times louder than the intended limit.

    • radiofreebc@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Compression is the way this happened. Commercials are HEAVILY compressed, and shows aren’t. It’s not volume…it’s compression ratios.

      • iocase@lemmy.zip
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        11 days ago

        Well yeah it’s squashing the dynamic range but it’s also more than that since they aren’t doing it evenly across the spectrum. They bias up the high gain frequencies for human hearing, and bias down the frequencies that are low perceived gain for human hearing.