Compressed sound is present everywhere.
We hear it on the radio, on music platforms, in evenings with friends, in concert halls, in the supermarket.
It is present in our workplace, through online meeting platforms.
And threatens our hearing, according to a study underway at the Center for Research and Innovation in Human Audiology (Ceriah), and presented this week during an evening on the theme “music and brain” at the Ministry of Health.
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Sound compression arrived in the 1960s, when it was necessary to mix a guitar with a drums, recalls Christian Hugonnet, acoustic engineer and founding president of UNESCO Sound Week.
“The guitar sound was too weak compared to the drums.
To avoid saturating the recording, we crushed the volume of the guitar to allow it to be at the same level as the drums.
This is what we call the phenomenon of dynamic overcompression of sound,” he explains.
The instruments equalize, leaving no more room for silence.
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