I read the above with fascination and some horror. I have some modern recordings that are highly distorted (almost anything by John Mayer) or shrill and flat sounding (almost anything I own from Sony Classical made in the last ten years), and some new recordings that are much better than decent (e.g. recordings by Bill Frisell, Janine Jensen, Aaron Neville). Some people still care, unfortunately artistic and production genius do not always line up. The old days were not always golden - I have some original issue LPs from the fifties, sixties and seventies that sound like crap, although the quality and production craft was routinely higher.
"The Death of High Fidelity"
Just received the new issue of Rolling Stone in the mail today. It has an interesting article: "The Death of High Fidelity." It deals with dynamic sound compression, reducing "the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song". Various sound engineers and producers weigh in on the subject. It's worth picking up a copy.