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Why do mass marketed CD's sound so crappy?

I posted awhile ago here asking opinions regarding the poor sound quality of Coldplay's "A Rush of Blood to the Head" CD. Now I want to ask the same question of U2's latest (which is great, btw). I also find Sheryl Crow's CD's to sound underwhelming and dissapointing. Besides that fact that I love her music. What gives? Are the artists clueless? Don't they hear what their releases sound like? Are the record companies deliberately turning out crappy sounding CD's to please the masses that listen primarily on Ipods and walkman's? Man, it makes it real tough to enjoy music I really love to listen to when it sounds so damn bad.

The first track on U2's newest, "Vertigo" really rocks out, but it sounds boomy and muddled. I wanted to turn this up real loud, but it just sounded awful. I'm bummed.
hammergjh
sean
6,229 posts
 
Speaking of this, my girlfriend received the latest release from a band called "The Darkness". This disc sounds SO bad it is insane. I'm not just talking about the recording quality either : ) Sean
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newbie13
242 posts
 
I consider "The Darkness" the modern day British equalivalent to KISS for campy rock with a touch of Spinal Tap and British humor thrown in. It is a spoof that is making those guys as rich as KISS.
hethaerto
5 posts
 
I like Darkness's new album, too. But I do NOT like listening to it.
Talk about slamming the levels! The mid-range is painful.
That album should be the posterchild for not compressing the mix buss. Compression is best used lightly while tracking vocals.
Allen
hammergjh OP
156 posts
 
Something is going on that I just don't understand. "Stereophile" just listed U2's latest as recording of the month and gave the sonics 4 stars??? WTF's up with that?
rannagarden
44 posts
 
Considering a CD takes 2secs to press ( including cooling ), and the ´master-copy´ looses detail on every press ( can take 2-10K of cycles ), your lucky if you get one of the first ones off the press, as the rest will decrease in quality. Buy two of the same CD, play them, chances are good that they will differ in quality.

Serious press-companies runs with a new master in very short cycles. Getting better quality sounding CD´s.

The first one off the press sounds just astonishing!

Also, I just get scared when knowing that a lot of studios plays with a simple transistor-/household-/megaboom-stereo
for reference/mixdown-reference. Because they know that there´s were the music will be played the most. They make it sound good on those thus they know that will sell them more records. Ugly, but true.

Thanks
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