It's confirmed: music is really getting louder

And now recording experts appear to have confirmed they are right - music is getting louder and the sound of some chart-topping albums is so distorted it is making listeners feel sick.

Record companies and bands like Oasis are using digital technology to ratchet up the volume on CDs to make a bigger impact on their young listeners.

But by artificially pushing up sound levels they also drown out the dynamic range of the song making everything sound 'loud'.

They use a technique called 'peak limiting' which squeezes the sound range on a track to one level by removing the peaks and troughs that would normally separate a quieter verse from a pumping chorus.

Britain's leading studio engineers are now launching a campaign against this widespread technique.

In the days of vinyl the record would jump out of the groove if a track was too loud, but modern CD players respond to the change in frequency by adding a buzzing, distorted sound to the loudest parts of the song.

This can drown out essential musical details like vocals and snare drums and make it unbearable to listen to.

Oasis started the loudness war and recent albums by Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen have pushed the loudness needle further into the red.

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Californication, branded 'unlistenable' by studio experts, is the subject of an online petition calling for it to be remastered without its harsh, compressed sound.

Peter Mew, senior mastering engineer at Abbey Road studios, said: 'Record companies are competing in an arms race to make their album sound the 'loudest'.

'The quieter parts are becoming louder and the loudest parts are just becoming a buzz.'

Mr Mew, who mastered David Bowie's classic 1970s albums, warned that modern albums now induced nausea.

He said: 'The brain is not geared to accept buzzing. CDs induce a sense of fatigue in the listeners. It becomes psychologically tiring and almost impossible to listen to.

Geoff Emerick, engineer on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, said: 'A lot of what is released today is basically a scrunched up mess.

'Whole layers of sound are missing. It is because record companies don't trust listeners to decide themselves if they want to turn the volume up.'

Downloading songs has exacerbated the effect. Songs are compressed once again into digital files before being sold on iTunes and similar sites.

The reduction in quality is so marked that EMI has introduced higher-quality digital tracks, at premium price, in response to consumer demand.