Why the "loudness wars" are killing today's music

From Digg: "Pull out a vinyl record from the 70s or early 80s, and listen to it. Odds are it'll have a big dynamic range -- it'll be whisper-quiet in some parts and booming lound in others. You'll pick up new nuances every time you listen to it. Now listen to any music track recorded in the last ten years, and it'll be radically different."

I'm seeing more of this type of posting on the net. Usually it is accompanied with graphs that show the same song from LP and then CD, and the CD always looks worse. I'll have to do this myself, because there are level differences between LP and CD, and of course CDs will end up being louder if you don't compensate. The real problem is the dynamic range, that is, the range of loudness from the loudest parts to the softest parts. I think further investigation is needed.

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