Did anyone see the Rolling Stone article?

"can you describe the article in a bit more detail, as i don't subscribe to RS (or watch much TV)? thanks."
It was about how engineers are now mastering the music for these ipods and small computer speakers right in the studio. So it seems to me we may be longing for the days of the cd's made in the 80's. It was giving examples of albums that were compressed in the studio vs. ones not compressed and how this could be the future of mastering. Basically it was saying people just don't care about sound quality anymore. I realize most of us already know this - but I found it particularly poignant since I just got a new SACD player the week it came out. At least before you just had to find the best stereo you could afford to listen to your music. Now you're going to have to pay a premium for what should just be the standard quality in CD, LP's etc.

This goes back to an old post I made where I thought that there is TOO MUCH music (noise) all the time wherever you go - supermarket, restaurant, gas station, everywhere - and all very poor quality. No silence or just the sound of life. It's crappy music blaring at everyone from every direction, all the time. So, then what value is there to music? To most people it is just background noise, they have never heard anything better and want this noise as cheaply as possible, to I guess drown out the sounds of life. Buy what you can now, it's only going to get worse. But one can hope I guess.

Maybe the real question is if anything in Rolling Stone has any real validity. I don't know an adult over 40 that even reads that rag. And I rarely see it on news stands. Sure there are always doomsayers yapping about how CDs and the music industry are dying. But how many of them really know anything?
And if the music business is so bad, why are major act concerts bringing in big dollars everywhere. We were just at a sold out Billy Joel concert three weeks ago - and the cheap tickets started at $65.00.

As far as mastering music for crappy playback systems goes, that's been happening since at least the 70's. I remember seeing a rare glimpse of the goings on in a recording studio during a Hall & Oates(?) session. The producer was doing a mixdown using these pathetic little speakers. He said he did this because the big speakers made everything sound good. Uh huh.