Extremely loud metal master

Here's the TT DR offline meter 1.4 report for the recent The Order of Apollyon album : The Sword and the Dagger (2015) in a mp3 320kbps CBR version :



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DR Peak RMS Filename

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DR11 -0.10 dB -13.97 dB 01. the Order of Apollyon - Own The Youth.mp3

DR4 -0.00 dB -4.60 dB 02. the Order of Apollyon - Hatred Over Will.mp3

DR3 -0.00 dB -4.43 dB 03. the Order of Apollyon - Our Flowers Are The Sword And The Dagger.mp3

DR4 -0.00 dB -4.73 dB 04. the Order of Apollyon - In Fremder Sprache.mp3

DR4 over -5.00 dB 05. the Order of Apollyon - Hold Not Thy Peace, O God Of My Praise.mp3

DR5 -0.07 dB -10.49 dB 06. the Order of Apollyon - Chants Of Purification.mp3

DR4 -0.00 dB -4.06 dB 07. the Order of Apollyon - The Cruse Is Poured Upon Them.mp3

DR5 -0.00 dB -6.20 dB 08. the Order of Apollyon - By Your Command We Return To Dust.mp3

DR4 -0.00 dB -4.81 dB 09. the Order of Apollyon - Eight Pillars.mp3

DR4 over -4.87 dB 10. the Order of Apollyon - The Hand That Became Weak.mp3

DR4 -0.00 dB -6.24 dB 11. the Order of Apollyon - Omnis Honor Et Gloria.mp3

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Number of files: 11

Official DR value: DR5



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Here's one song on youtube : http://ift.tt/1Bk1T02 which sounds more blurry than the mp3 files.



Here's a FFT analysis of the two last songs of the album, which looks very similar from one song to another :







The's nothing at all over 17kHz and the highs dramatically drop at around 12 kHz ans there are no deep lows.



The spectrum looks like the one of a cassette tape. The lack of highs is audible and the whole record sounds dull. There's no audible clipping (except on some synth pads, with some medium, filtered sounding ones) , Wavelab doesnt report any and none can be seen on the waveform display. It sounds overlimited but drums still have some kind of a punch. The album is very tiring to listen to, but not harsh or ears piercing.



Does anyone have comments on how this result was obtained ? Multiband limiting (several stages maybe?) ? "matching EQ" ? Have the highs been filtered to conceal artifacts ?



I dont want to try this at home and I dont want to start a "loudness war" thread. Seems that the harsh sound of clipping (digital or ADC) is something of the past and that limiting is the current way toward ridiculous loudness.

While it is impressive to have this level of loudness and that the record is still audible, I'm not getting the point. I mean, it would have sounded as massive at DR7 or 8, and probably better. The reduced amount of high mids and highs make this not "that loud" to the ear. It's sheer fatiguing sound pressure.

Extremely loud metal master