Agreed regarding the audibility of (data-) compressed audio, just put on some classic jazz with trumpets and lots of cymbals and the artifacts are immediately apparent.

Not going to argue with you regarding dynamic compression, but after backing away from the worst excesses of the volume wars by mastering engineers in the mid '00s, things are sounding better to my ears. Dynamic compression can sound good (even in the extreme) if done for artistic effect. Like here's Beck's Ramona where the drums & cymbals have the tar squashed out of them with serious limiting, which to my ears nicely tames the sonics of Joey Waronker's spirited performance, while fitting well dynamically into the rest of the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3yZ9OVjzbE

That said, maybe the engineers responsible for some of the worst dynamic squashing could be pressed into TV/film audio service where in 2026, there are still extreme volume imbalances between on-screen dialogue and everything else (hint the dialogue isn't loud enough and the everything else, especially crashes and explosions, are wayyy too loud).

Sure, compressing individual elements judiciously is a valid and even necessary choice. But the so-called "remastering" that has ruined our whole pop/rock heritage as represented today on streaming services is a heinous, lazy hack job that ruins people's enjoyment of music... even though they can't put their finger on why.

When I was a little kid, I'd ride my bike to the record store and buy my two or three favorite current songs on 45. I noticed that they didn't sound as "fat" as they did on the radio. So I got an equalizer. But that of course wasn't the answer.

Over time I realized that I liked the sound of the records better. They were more fun to turn up loud. Likewise I realized that the oddly-quiet station on my FM dial (WXRT in Chicago) sounded the best. All because it, like the records, was less dynamically compressed than the other stations.

A huge number of people alive today have never heard good-sounding pop music, which is disgraceful. Near-perfect sound reproduction is within everyone's reach now, but the recordings themselves are ruined before we get them.

It's all even more stupid when you consider that compression could have been (and was) done ON THE PLAYBACK DEVICE. My 1996 Ford CD player has a button on it labeled "Compress."

Duh. People aren't getting smarter.