Article in WSJ about compressed dynamic range

Any lawyers out there - possible class action lawsuit here? I have over 1000 CD's and I would estimate that at least 10% are "hard clipped" throughout - that means totally maxed out with flat square waves on peak parts in the music. In any other respectable business this kind of faulty product would be recalled.

See this site - software now exists that will tell you how bad a CD product is CD Clipping

We also have "expert" witnesses who have made public statements. It is fairly easy to prove that the product is faulty.

The most compelling reason I shy away from some contemporary audio formats and music genres.

In my area digital CBS TV station broadcacts at least twice louder (up to point of distortion) than digital NBC station. In addition CBS spikes high frequencies - probably to get more vivid sound on TV speakers without tweeters.

It is very difficult to prove that product (CD) is faulty since they will show better sales and a lot of satisfied buyers. It is all targeted toward average person and not the audiophils. I have nightmares about everything changing, one day, to only one format - MP3.

Viridian, wouldn't it make more sense for manufactures of electronics geared for small, budget, or portable use have an eq switch for such instances, than to forever damage historic documentations of musical performances?

Of course. And the listening situation argument doesn't hold water with me. I was listening to my car stereos in in the vehicles I've owned since the early 70s and the music never sounded as crap as a Foo Fighter, Nirvana, Metallica, Green Day song sounds now. And cars were a lot noisier inside then than they are today.

Ok, wrong term, then add a compression switch. Didn't DBX offer something like this years ago on their inexpensive cd players? What ever happend to the idea of "high fidelity"? The lowest common denominator mentality is compromising our culture, and not just in audio.

Unsound - isn't it strange that they keep master tapes pure and uncompressed but we won't be ever able to hear them because of this mentality?

Perhaps some studio rats might pipe in, but it's my understanding that the process used to make super loud recordings involves much more than simple compression. It's not just flicking a single switch and it cannot presently be duplicated at the consumer end.

Unsound - isn't it strange that they keep master tapes pure and uncompressed but we won't be ever able to hear them because of this mentality?

It is so sad...

Perhaps some studio rats might pipe in, but it's my understanding that the process used to make super loud recordings involves much more than simple compression. It's not just flicking a single switch and it cannot presently be duplicated at the consumer end.

Most DSP's have a reduced dynamic range feature which is needed on crap systems as movies often have great dynamics (still). If you ever struggle to hear dialogue on a movie then you have a "crap" system that unfortunately benefits from the compressed modern pop crap from the studios (this is unfortunately many more systems than most people actually realize - it is not just iPods, boomboxes and cars - many systems have a deeply scooped midrange and benefit from audio compression in order to make dialog more audible...)

What a mess! Geesh, it almost makes the continued pursuit of the holy grail of audio, a complete and utterless waste of time, money and effort.