Loudness Matters

Just about everybody I ever vame across in the radio industry repeat the same thing that how loud a radio station sounds is of paramount concern.

This comes anout because the mind plays a trick on the listener.The mind when presented with two sounds rapisly one after the other (music paticularly) then the mind will say the louder one is better.

Most people do not know this so the 'myth' that loudness is important is established and perpetuated by repetition.

Modoulating fully is a good ideal but striving for ever more loadness is not benefical.

Once a listener listens for a longer period of time the initial impression wears off and such things as program content becomes important as to whether a listener continues to listen.This decsion has little to do with the processing and more to do with the creative content of the station.

Having said that designing a processor that sounds good all the time no metter what is thrown at it is very difficult.That is why the likes of Omnis/Orban can charge what they do is because they have figured out the close to best solution.
But yhey do nothing to dispell the idea that loudness is so important. If anybody out their can direct me to a scientific proof that loudness is important please let me know.Any such proof would have been very expensive to undertake as it would involve setting up statixcally based listerning tests with a large number of subjects.