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Exactly. I'd say it's the saddest part. The one time I remember reading that some record exec was challenged on it, and the excuse was "nobody wants to have the

Exactly. I'd say it's the saddest part. The one time I remember reading that some record exec was challenged on it, and the excuse was "nobody wants to have the quietest CD in the changer." WHAT? As if anyone on the planet would go over to the changer, eject this allegedly offending CD, look at the label, and then declare, "Welp, I'm never buying another album put out on Arista records!" The utter stupidity of it is mind-boggling. And add to that the fact that, if people wanted compression so much, it could be done by THE PLAYER. In fact, this used to be done. My 1996 Mustang's CD player has a "Compress" button on it, to make listening to highly dynamic music more feasible in a noisy car environment.

tech2 3y ago
> My 1996 Mustang's CD player has a "Compress" button on it, to make listening to highly dynamic music more feasible in a noisy car environment. I believe _this_ is where the issue mostly originated (well, radio, really). Radio is already massively compressed, and many people were either listening to things in the car, on some tiny little radio in the kitchen, or with awful cheap headphones with their walkman's built-in radio. All of these weren't great environments to start with, and the dynamic range of radio was tiny given the overall bandwidth available to most FM stations. So, companies compress, people get used to it, and thus the horror continues.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  For sure, radio stations always compressed in order to sound "stronger" on the dial. Just another reason that compressing the actual recording was unnecessary.
  - tech2 3y ago
    Right, and because radio stations do that I'd wondered whether marketing choose to "make it sound like radio" so people don't complain when they buy the disc
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      Not out of the question. When I was a little kid I'd buy 45s and notice this difference. I asked for an equalizer for Christmas, thinking this was the issue. But of course it wasn't, and before long I realized that I liked the sound of the records better.

tech2 3y ago

> My 1996 Mustang's CD player has a "Compress" button on it, to make listening to highly dynamic music more feasible in a noisy car environment. I believe _this_ is where the issue mostly originated (well, radio, really). Radio is already massively compressed, and many people were either listening to things in the car, on some tiny little radio in the kitchen, or with awful cheap headphones with their walkman's built-in radio. All of these weren't great environments to start with, and the dynamic range of radio was tiny given the overall bandwidth available to most FM stations. So, companies compress, people get used to it, and thus the horror continues.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
For sure, radio stations always compressed in order to sound "stronger" on the dial. Just another reason that compressing the actual recording was unnecessary.
- tech2 3y ago
  Right, and because radio stations do that I'd wondered whether marketing choose to "make it sound like radio" so people don't complain when they buy the disc
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    Not out of the question. When I was a little kid I'd buy 45s and notice this difference. I asked for an equalizer for Christmas, thinking this was the issue. But of course it wasn't, and before long I realized that I liked the sound of the records better.