The Distortion of Sound

I bet, that owners of small boomboxes (that buy more CDs than audiophiles) would prefer red over green. 

My intention was NOT to address boombox or car stereo users, though(I'm certain) SOME AudiogoN denizens could probably satisfy their listening tastes with such.   Those live music afficionados, that check the sites, may find information useful to them.   Especially if the aim in their listening and assembly of their system, is suspension of disbelief.    

Compressed CDs sell better, because most of people have tiny systems (minitowers, boomboxes etc.) Compression is intentional. Audiophiles with better gear have very low buying power.

As a technical note, it's not compression, but limiting and compression.  Limiting chops off the dynamic peaks and then compression is used to raise the average signal strength.

The modern loudness wars was the result of iTunes type random order playlists becoming the dominant listening format.  Artists, engineers and record labels did not want their songs to sound softer (less impactful) than the songs that came before or after them on a playlist.  It's not really different than what happened to AM radio in the 1960s, just different technology.  Early Motown was considered highly compressed (loud) for its time and other labels tried to be as loud.

I don't look at a lot of album reviews but if I were to recommend an album or for that matter do a published review I can't imagine not calling the DR Smasher's out - anything less than an 11 just sounds terrible to me. I just don't care how good the material, musicianship, etc is.