Your dad's right, music really IS getting louder

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Record companies have concluded that louder is better and are digitally enhancing sound. But sound engineers say turning up the volume destroys the quality of the music, because it compresses the sound range to just one - loud. And the "buzz" created by distorting sound levels could even be making us sick.

Peter Mew, senior mastering engineer at Abbey Road studios said: "The brain is not geared to accept buzzing. The CDs induce a sense of fatigue in the listeners. It becomes psychologically tiring and almost impossible to listen to."

Oasis was the first band to raise the decibels and recently Arctic Monkeys released material that has pushed up the volume even further. Domino, Arctic Monkeys' record company, defended its use of compression,

saying it made the band sound "impactful".

The effect is worse on downloaded tracks, as songs which have already had their sound ranges condensed are then compressed again into digital files.

THE BIG NOISE IN BANDS

Full capacity, the loudest sound level music can theoretically be recorded at is 0 decibels (db). Twenty years ago the average sound level of a track was -18db, but digital technology has allowed engineers to push music closer to full capacity.

Appetite for Destruction, Guns N' Roses' 1987 album, had a level of -15db, and in 1999 the Red Hot Chili Peppers' album Californication was up to -5.6db.

Remastered work can have the noise levels pushed up even higher - the 1973 album Raw Power by The Stooges, remastered in 1997, was up to an earsplitting -4db.