Compressed recordings? HiFi enemy 1?

Hopefully classical recordings are done without compression but they may have it. Jazz may have compression and almost all rock/pop will have compression. There are two major problems with trying to 'undo' compression.

1) You have no idea what compression ratio was used, what threshold point was chosen for onset of compression, and no idea what the attack and release parameters were. This would be trial and error on every cut.
2) Compression is typically done on individual instruments and voices (with different setting for each). Then additional compression may be used on the entire mix just before pressing.

There have been audio expanders on the market in the past (have not looked lately). They can increase the dynamic range and may be liked by some and disliked by others. They obviously will only work on the entire signal and can only be set up subjectively and may need adjustment with every track. Finally, a recording may be thought of as a work of art that includes the recordists, producers, and other sound persons as performers in nearly an equal sense to the instrumentalists. Most of us here on Audiogon become the final sound person in the performance through our selection and use of equipment. An audio expander may be a tool that you would like in your sound shaping arsenal.

For my system & ears, definitely yes!

Danner: classical recordings have compression -- lots of it, unfortunately :(. Indeed, in some cd versions of old recordings you can hear the effects quite clearly.
Dynamics are too high going from a pianissimo to a full-orchestra forte, it seems!
An expander is next to useless here, I suppose; Danner explained the reasons above.

Hey Hi:
Well, I'm not the one to ask, but IMHO for about 98% of the music out there they can't compress it enough! With any luck sometime soon we won't be able to hear it at all. Worrying about the recording quality of the stuff is like worrying about what wine to serve with spam. Which is one reason why most of the more discerning folks at Agon find it harder and harder to find good recordings of their favorite music. When the music is disposable why worry about how it's recorded? The recording standards are under assault.

Seriously, there are some smart folk working hard on recording and I hope they pull it off. Here is one good discussion. www.zainea.com/percept.htm

Sincerely
I remain,

A little compression is a good thing. It fills out the sound and gives it some weight. Too much compression sounds really bad. Flat, undynamic and generally uninteresting. Unfortunately, once compression has been applied to music its effect cannot be undone.

BTW, it wouldn't sound like rock n' roll without a good deal of applied compression.

I believe many years ago Dbx marketed such a CD player.

I still have that dbx DX5 cd player in my bedroom system...it has settings for "ambiance, compression and DAIR"...it improved the dynamics of almost all cd's...I used to run it on a Marantz 2270 with BIC Venturi 6 speakers and then a Sony GX67ES until I did a full system replacement a few years ago...I have fond memories of it

I think with music that has been compressed a lot, I have to put the volume really low. Even then it sounds too loud. And just bumping up the volume a hair has a big effect on volume.
Sometimes I hear a song and don't really like the tune but it sounds good from a sound quality perspective. When I then look at the CDP (which shows playback sound level), the meter is all over the place. An indication of less compression?
Hopefully with all those B&W speakers as monitors, we'll be getting better quality recordings in the near future.

FYI, an interesting discussion by pro engineers about the how and whys of compressor use.

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=004255