Why do mass marketed CD's sound so crappy?

Birdwizard is right on. In our audio society we went to a recording studio where we heard a local artist do up a first shot at a song he'd just composed, and got to see the various tricks they could perform with the pro tools software in the studio. A few months later the guys from the studio came to one of our meetings at my home with a CD on which was the original cut of that song we heard, the rough cut with the full rock band in the studio and the version they were presenting to the record companies to sell the band. The rough cut sounded great--dynamic as hell, clean, ideal for an audiophile's system. The cut the record company was getting was compressed dynamically and nowhere near as good sounding as the rough cut. But it is what is needed to make the song sound good on a radio station (tough to hear the really quiet parts over the road and wind noise in a car) and to sell the record and the artist to the big labels. Don't necessarily blame the artist, it's not their call for the most part.

So, what are we supposed to do about this. Stop buying the music we love and want to hear? "...Atomic Bomb" is the number 1 seller on Amazon right now. Obviously the poor recording/mix isn't hurting sales.

Rcprince, did the guys from the studio notice the difference between the two versions of the recording on your home system? Weren't they ashamed at the poor quality of the mass released version? How can they look at themselves in the mirror say they're doing a good job?

Listen also to the Santana disc superlingual, I think, it's non-listenable. It's a $14 coaster in my book.

I spend a lot of time archieving vinyl to CD format for car play. It's interesting to take an old vinyl disc and compare it to current CD slop. People often ask me why it sounds so good and what is my car stereo. (basic GM original) no upgrades.

They have that jaw hanging slack look when I tell them what they're listening to. So I think most people CAN HEAR the difference, they were just never educated and the music industry would prefer they stay that way. Why look at the MP3 downloads for only 0.99 each. Pure profit, no materials, not costs. Hmmm

loon

Hammergjh: Yeah, they heard the difference; they could also easily hear the difference between the 24/96 master tape we got to hear in the control room and the 16/44.1 CD they mixed down from that tape. But they're really not the record producers in this case, they produced a demo CD for this artist in order to sell the artist to a major recording label, so they did what they had to do to get the attention of the major labels. No shame there. And I guess the major labels want what sells, what will sound good on a car radio, not what will sound good on a high end system because we're unfortunately not the market they're worried about. I'd love it if the companies would release two versions of a disc, a compressed one for the radio stations to play and an uncompressed one we could buy, but there I go dreaming again!

There was an article in Bass Player magazine about this. Bela Fleck and a famous bass player (I forget his name) did a recording. The article talked about how they struggled with the final mix. The bassist came from a classical background, and wanted no compression, and the microphone far away from his acoustic bass. Bela, being from a more pop/jazz background, wanted lots of compression so it would sound good on car radios.
Why don't we have DECOMPRESSORS anymore? When I was just starting out, I remember seeing in the HighEnd rooms DBX gear that was designed to restore the dynamics original to the music. Now that we're in the digital age, it should be easier to undo than ever.