Consider a signal that contains a high-volume section and then low-volume. During recording, these signals are compressed to be much closer together in level, so that the high-volume section does not saturate the tape and the low-volume section is louder than the tape hiss. On playback, the louder section has little or no muting applied, so the tape hiss is also left alone at its natural volume. When the softer section plays, having been amplified during recording, the expander mutes it down its original level. This also mutes down the tape hiss.