Loudness Wars reaching dangerous levels

There is a new threat to our audiophile ways; the volunatry compression of dynamic range in the pursuit of 'louder' sound. This practice has become so widespread as to affect/infect jazz and classical recordings as well, not just the pop recordings which have been so obviously flattened for several decades now. The Loudness Wars have escalated to such levels of distortion that most notable mastering engineers are seriously concerned about the future of recorded music in regards to listenability.

We've seen many issues of this nature come and go in the past, resulting in various levels of sound quality degradation. Find out why this particular issue poses a more serious danger to our hi-end audio hobby:

Dangerous deficit of Dynamics

The audiophile market segment was not large enough to save SACD or DVD-A, but the music industry's future business models (based on the internet) will allow individual artists to pay more attention to their fans. Audiophiles will be able to vote with their pocket book and thus be heard.

Through this thread we hope to generate discussion and ideas that would help reverse the effects of this alarming trend. We invite you to post your thoughts below but ask that you stay on topic.