But first, let’s just have a peak at these waveforms (pardon the pun…)

Beethoven’s “5th symphony”	Pink Floyd’s “Money”	“Who Let the Dogs Out?”

As you might imagine, the person listening to Beethoven with their stereo cranked up loud will really feel the impact of the orchestra’s stronger dynamic passages. In a similar way, the Pink Floyd track has plenty of headroom for any major changes in dynamic; this track is beat-driven, so the drums produce fairly constant high level transients throughout and give us a visual idea of where the average level sits. Those transients roughly match the loudest parts in the Beethoven track. Even with Money’s percussive peaks, the track still has enough headroom to swell above those levels as you can see during the last half of the song where the solos occur. This option to give “more“ at some point in your music is always rewarding.

Now… let’s picture the beating your speakers and your ears would have to endure if we were to leave the stereo volume up where our friend was enjoying Ludwig Van and throw on “Who Let the Dogs Out?”…”Whoa! Who blew the woofers out?” 

In conclusion, the blasting master would likely make us run to turn our stereo volume down; its dynamic ratio would be pretty much linear and it’s constant peaking would become fatiguing over time. “But on the noisy dance floor it rocks!”

So let’s consider the material.