Sean Olive (Harman) posted a note about this in a signal processing forum (that I moderate) on the web. I thought I should post it here as it's topical...and it's a quick read.

His post deals with the idea that maybe, just maybe "the kids of today" actually prefer good sound (i.e. CD versus highly compressed mp3) if given the chance.

Here's the link:

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/blog/2012/05/09/kids-are-alright

Great Link. At the end of it be sure to check out "Lets talk about Dynamic Range Compression". Really great stuff.

Xenon: Thanks for calling attention to that specific link - I covered some aspects of this in my post "The Loudness War and Remastering" (http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=90314#Post90314), but it is a VERY important part of the discussion.

It's funny, because I do a lot of live recording, most of it binaural (either wholly or in-part), made using a Neumann KU-100 mannequin head microphone, and when people hear the recordings played back over headphones, the comments are usually along the lines of "this doesn't even sound like a recording...it sounds real...". Now, in part, this is due to them hearing a binaural recording (which in itself is rare for 99.9999% of the population), but there's also a subtext here...and it's related to the dynamic range discussion.

That is, when I play back the recordings, they may have some slight tweaks going on (such as a notch filter here or there to help fix a room mode), but they are otherwise not processed...and this makes the recordings seem fundamentally different than what most people are used to hearing. Again, this is because I try to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio, stay out of distortion (i.e. hitting 0 dBFS), and present a realistic 'acoustic document' that is designed to live in the digital world, but also, to be...authentic. That's not to say that most recording engineers don't strive for the greatest sonic accuracy, but I am sure countless engineers pull their hair out when they hear their work mastered in a manner that effectively destroys all of their hard work and dedication towards a clean recording.

Sadly, this is the norm, and again...paradoxically...the very medium (digital) was envisioned as a means by which dynamic range compression, save used for effect, was no longer necessary. Truly, there is no need to dynamic-range compress the recording proper - especially when you consider that many car audio systems as well as mp3 players have level compression / limiting as features that can be invoked by users. Yet...the compression at the source continues.

I would venture to guess that if typical music consumers knew someone who works in live recording (or in a studio who would let you hang out there) and could facilitate typical non-processed playback as a means by which people could 'learn' just how good recorded music can sound, the average listener would be stunned by the experience and left pondering the question "so why does so much recorded music sound like crap?".

The trouble though is indeed the seemingly mutually exclusive forces of sonic accuracy and revenue production (by being louder than the competition) that prevail in the music industry.