Hello everyone.  This is my first post on the new forums.  I've been posting here extremely infrequently over the past few years, so I doubt anyone remembers me, but hello anyway.

Anyway, I was driving to my college this morning listening to the Silent Hill soundtrack for the first time in a while, and thinking "goddamn this disc kicks a dangerously large amount of ass."  I couldn't find a track i didn't like on it.  I skip around and come to one of my favorites, "I"ll Kill You," which starts out very quiet, then gradually increases in volume, like, three times over.  And the bass.  I had forgotten how extreme the mixdown on this disc was, particularly with the bonecrushing lower frequencies.  Anyway, I decided to play this track louder than I had ever played any track before.  The bulid up was sweet, great tensions building.  Louder, and louder.  How much louder could this song possibly get, I wondered.

Not much, because the next thing I heard was constant rattling that obscured what was supposed to be the music.  Even at very low volumes now, the speakers rattle so much they are pretty much unusable.

I didn't think this was something that actually happened.  I hear some bands say their shit is so crazy it'll blow your speakers out, but it's one of those things I thought would never happen to me.  But ultimately, out of all the albums I own, I'm glad - hell, downright proud - that it was Silent Hill that did the deed.

The only thing is now I'm kind of scared to spin this disc at high volumes again.  Silent Hill found a new way to give me anxiety.

Just thought y'all should be warned.  Careful with the volume knob when you play this soundtrack.  It needs constant attention.

Hah, that's pretty funny.  Did it just blow the sub, or some of the other speakers too?

I mean... not funny like "hahaha" but funny like "whoa, that's incredible."

I remember you, btw. ;)

If that happened to your speakers, I'd hate to think what it was doing to your eardrums.

Dude, that sucks!

I blew speakers before on two occasions. Once was when I was blasting Black Mages with the bass turned up (crackle) and the other was when I was playing Devil May Cry with my stereo turned up really, really loud. Coincidentally, each instance blew out one speaker - BM the left, and DMC the right. That sucked.

The sub is definitely shot, and I think I may have damaged the other ones as well (the tweeters?  not sure)  Played a different album, music seemed a little less impaired than Silent Hill, except for the bass.  But everything is a little muffled now, and crackles a lot.  It's a shame, I always enjoyed listening to music with that system.  Looking back I don't think the speakers were meant to handle that kind of abuse.

The whole thing was pretty much due to utter stupidity on my part, I remember turning the subwoofer control to the maximum, forgetting that theres another setting for the eq in which the lower frequencies were already maxed out.  That combined with what was probably a maxed out total volume knob.  Not too smart.

In that car, music always seems quieter than it actually is because the engine is so goddamn loud.  I mean, really loud.  So I underestimated that.

Well, lesson learned.

i think out of all the cds i own, black mages is recorded the loudest. it puts nearly every bar on my meter into the red.

A lot of the best sounding Squaresoft albums (SSCX) were mastered at "Bernie Grundman Mastering" which has locations both in California and in Tokyo, and is widely regarded as one of the top places around.

http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_bernie_g … mastering/
http://www.prosoundnews.com/articles/article_1422.shtml

And just FYI info - it's the Mastering Engineer who ensures the 'maximum meter loudness' not the Recording Engineer.

(The Recording Engineer in the Studio usually keeps all the levels within reasonable range so as not to potentially overcompress the mix during that middle stage, but attaining the maximum level volume is entirely done at the Mastering facility which is the final stage).

I ruined a pair of studio monitors with Ministry's "Rio Grande Blood" not too long ago. I'd say it was worth it.

Haha. Word.

Hey why did you kill off your Lj?

Nothing to update with + ex-girlfriend/mutual friends tension. I'd rather make myself scarce than make others feel uncomfortable.

If I ever start a new one, I'll add you and let you know.