A High Dynamic Range
Christmas Playlist
[Guest Post by Allan Folz]
For this Christmas I'd like
to share with Archimago and readers the albums that have become a large part of
our family's holiday tradition.
In the old days, when all
our music was on CD's I'd load up the 5 disc changer with these albums the
Sunday after Thanksgiving and they were almost the only holiday music we'd have
for the next month. Streaming wasn't a thing in the early Internet years. You
listened to the albums you had and you liked them.
I bought all but one of
these CD's more than 20 years ago and got them largely by (some really good!)
luck of the draw. For the longest while I thought they were my favorites
because they were such a constant part of our lives from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
Later, after I learned about dynamic range I realized it made perfect sense
that they were my favorites.
After getting more deeply
involved in the hobby I discovered that all my favorite albums had a high
dynamic range. This was interesting to me because I had formed my opinion on my
favorite albums long before I'd learned about album dynamic range. Only after
looking at the dynamic range of my favorite albums did I realize that almost
always the common element was a high dynamic range. The corollary also held
true. The albums I bought that were disappointing once I got them home and had
a few listens had a low dynamic range.