OK. So what is it with podcasts & dynamic range. Particularly volume ranges. Though I suppose this goes for talk Radio too. Especially those that take phone calls. Don't they realize that people listen to these thing in cars? With road noise? So, in order to hear the quiet parts, you get painfully blasted for the loud parts. Or in the case of call in shows, you have to turn it up for the caller, & quick turn it back down for the host. Their engineers should be fired.
What inspired this was the SETI Science & Skepticism podcast. This is a podcast of the SETI Institute's weekly radio program - Are We Alone? I think it's broadcast on one of the satellite networks as well as local radio stations. So, you would think that it would be pretty professionally done. It isn't. It is physically painful to listen to in the car. Their astronomers & scientists that call in apparently all use $4 phones with 8 socks over them. The host Dr. Seth Shostak goes from whisper soft to quite vibrantly loud quite often. While that is great for lectures, it is lousy on the radio. It just got deleted from my iTunes subscription list.
In contrast, one of the better podcasts to listen to is a much more amateur 'cast by the folks over at Slacker Astronomy. Not only is the content usually very interesting, they also keep it pretty listenable. Slacker Astronomy is a weekly podcast about news in the world of astronomy. There are 2 hosts & a producer/engineer. It helps that Aaron, the 'engineer' was a computer geek in a previous life, rather than only being an astronomy geek. Anyway, it's highly recommended.
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So, I'm finally getting around to doing a podcast review, like I promised about 6 months ago. Slacker Astronomy is a "Podcast for fun, for you, for the voices in our heads". Or at least that's their tagline. Really it's an interesting little podcast ...