Hi
Can anyone explain in simple terms what the flat spectrum (below) means? It’s from a 22KHz FLAC file (many are like this and many more are “non-flattened”) but appears flattened as if it should extend above the 22KHz limit. More importantly, am I missing more audio information/quality or can the human ear basically not hear anything above 22KHz anyway?
TIA
DDJ
That looks to me like a Hot mastering, compressed if you like. No light and shade but will sound loud.
Check out The Loudness wars,
Now this, sound gorgeous
A live bootleg we recorded with plenty of dynamics and space.
Thanks Chris
Funny enough I was going to post a Led Zeppelin FLAC Spectrum which was tiny (“vertically”) like your pic above and ask about the difference betyween that and a “larger” spectrum. I dare to ask…but is (vertical) size important in these Roon spectrums? What does it indicate? What does a level FLAC spectrum imply?
TIA
DDJ
FLAC has nothing to do with it, that’s just the lossless wrapper the file is stored it.
The loudness wars is where they mastered CD’s (Music Files) louder and louder by compression so they appeared loud and lively on first listen and caught attention on Radio etc.
The level is as high as they can go and the lower sounds are increased and higher sounds can be clipped.
A lot of pop music and Re Mastered CD’s are like this. It’s an idea to find earlier releases that have not been treated this way.
The result is a flat loud sound with no dynamic range that may sound great on cheap radios but soon becomes tiresome and flat.
Ideally, you want quiet sounds quiet and loud sound loud.
Ultimately I can turn my amp up if I want music loud and don’t need them to do it for me.
@Chrislayeruk is 100% on the money. Check out Wikipedia: Loudness War for more information. You don’t want to see this kind of maxed out (pumped up) waveform, as the difference between quiet and loud parts has been reduced to almost nothing, arguably good for listening to on a cheap radio, but terrible at home on a decent stereo. Sometimes a “remastered” CD will look like this, whereas the original release is a much thinner line, representing a larger dynamic range.
For example, Neil Young. Original CD:
And the re-master:
The remaster is louder, the original sounds better.
Hmm. It would be great to have those DR numbers as well in Roon. 
Thanks everyone…explains a lot. I thought the rip was the problem but it’s actually the source as you say that sometimes has this “artificial loudness” pumped in. The moral (or objective) obviously then is to have a varying waveform with naturally ocurring peaks and troughs.
DDJ
Oh, we did. Although, I’d thought I’d mention it again since dev Joel linked the “other” DR site. Hence, the winky face. 
Do you think if we pester them enough it might happen? 
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