The Baltimore Sun reports how audio engineers have, for more than a decade, gradually raised the volume of music recordings, posing a threat to our hearing.
The Sun reports:
"The level of compact discs went up about 20 decibels in 20 years,"
observed Bob Katz, chief mastering engineer of
Digital Domain, a sound
studio in Florida.
To make this happen, engineers filter out the normal peaks and valleys
of musical performances - and boost the volume of everything between.
The technique also shows up in TV commercials that are much noisier
than the programs they sponsor.
In the music industry, it has produced a generation of recordings that
lacks the subtlety of earlier releases. Some experts also fear that it
contributes to long-term hearing loss.
"This is horrible for the recording industry," said the
Seldon Plan's
Mike Nestor, who plays guitar for the up-and-coming indie rock group.
"But we had to compromise our principles to get noticed."
Across the industry, the escalation in loudness was so gradual that average listeners rarely noticed the assault on their ears.
"It was like a frog put in warm water and heated slowly to a boil. It
doesn't realize what's happening to it," said Charles Dye, a veteran
Florida sound engineer.
Hearing specialists worry that louder recordings, played through tens
of millions of iPods and other digital players that blast music
directly into the ear canal, could produce an epidemic of hearing loss.
"As a culture, we are becoming more used to loud noise," said
Monita
Chatterjee, a hearing specialist at the University of Maryland, College
Park. "I really feel like we are pushing it."
Recalls Complicate Holiday Toy Drives
The Connecticut Post reports:
Concerns over children's
safety this holiday season, stemming from the recent massive toy
recalls, has made the process of putting together annual holiday toy
drives more difficult and time-consuming.
Many local businesses and organizations are being forced to rely mainly
on newly donated toys. Most have not yet found enough time or
volunteers to sift through the thousands of toys stored from last
year's drive and get rid of any recalled items.
"It's extra work, but I don't want to give a child an unsafe toy," said
Robert McCorkle, a regional coordinator for the Marine Toys for Tots
Foundation. The lengthy list, which can be found on the Consumer
Product Safety Commission Web site, contains the names of more than 100
items that have been recalled this year, including popular Fisher-Price
and Mattel toys.
The toys were removed from store shelves because of choking hazards or
excessive levels of lead paint. All of the toys were made in China.
Are Holiday Lights Green Enough to Survive?I am still seeing a fair number of news Web sites asking people to send in the locations of favorite holiday light displays. I wonder if there will come a time when such displays will be considered as out-of-date as smoking in a restaurant. I am surprised there are not global warming groups calling for the end of holiday light displays -- or maybe I have missed them.
Hired Guns to Fight Tax Bills
The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times ran a story I haven't seen before. The paper tells the story of professional tax negotiators -- hired guns who negotiate lower property tax bills on behalf of their clients. Sometimes the client is a business, sometimes a rich landowner. It would be interesting to see how much they save their well-heeled clients where you live.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning
Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other
materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and
analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it
will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The
column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of
the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be
corrected.
Al, I'm one of those people who decorates his house...
