Loudness War

sorry folks...i forgot to include the link to the discussion i cited above. It's entitled: "Deep Listening: Why Audio Quality Matters"

Here it is: http://philoctetes.org/Past_Programs/Deep_Listening_Why_Audio_Quality_Matters

T Bone Burnett is another strong proponent and advocate of quality and bemoans the loudness wars too.

No surprise there - he is rather a sound quality fanatic and likes to play music loud on his ATC 150ASL...

Pro Software or some media players that allow you to analyze or normalize the sound seems the least expensive route.

Of course you could proceed the old fashioned route and simply start out each new disc at a lower volume setting and raise it to suit yourself.

I find such recordings are pop & rock, urban & hip hop CDs mostly. The audience they're shooting for could care less about dynamic range, and most will be deaf well before their mid life crisis rolls around.

Back in the day when LP's ruled the media world, these same complaints were constantly being heard. Especially on hard rock recordings. I agree with the poster above, that the reason being is that the vast majority of the music buying public tended to own lo-fi, low rez audio gear. I sure do miss rotary loudness controls, and DBX black boxes.

Back in the day when LP's ruled the media world, these same complaints were constantly being heard

Yup, in those days you had to buy Japanese pressings and 12" 45 rpm (for clubs) of all the vinyl pop music if you cared about quality (enormous differences compared to regular vinyl). Both LP's and the small 45's were often made 'hot'. The CD Loudness wars has, however, taken this to a whole new extreme level of compression.