[kj] Yahoo! Tech: "Why New Music Doesn't Sound As Good as it Did"

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

From: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/33549

Why New Music Doesn't Sound As Good As It Did

Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:17PM EDT

Never mind that today's factory-produced starlets and mini-clones just 
don't have the practiced chops of the supergroups of yesteryear, pop in 
a new CD and you might notice that the quality of the music itself—maybe 
something as simple as a snare drum hit—just doesn't sound as crisp and 
as clear as you're used to. Why is that?

It's part of the music industry's quest to make music louder and louder, 
and it's been going on for decades, at least since the birth of the 
compact disc. Click the link for a nice little video, a mere 2 minutes 
long, which explains it in detail, with audio cues that you'll be able 
to hear in crisp detail.

The key to the problem is that, in making the soft parts of a track 
louder (in the process making the entire track loud), you lose detail in 
the song: The difference between what's supposed to be loud and what's 
supposed to be soft becomes less and less. The result is that, sure, the 
soft parts of a song are nice and loud, but big noises like drum beats 
become muffled and fuzzy. But consumers often subconsciously equate 
loudness with quality, and thus, record producers pump up the volume. 
Anything to make a buck.

The bigger problem is that this is all unnecessary. Stereo equipment is 
more powerful today than ever, and last time I checked, every piece of 
music hardware had a volume knob.

Don't take my word for it: Pop in the first CD you bought and play it at 
the same volume level as the most recent one you bought. You might be 
shocked by what you hear.