Is music quality moving away from the "audiophile"

Compression is generally part of the mixing or mastering process (often both). I can't blame most artists for doing whatever it takes to appeal to the iPod generation - I would be doing the same thing myself. However, there are still plenty of good recordings being put out, though they aren't the easiest to find. The latest Lindsey Buckingham album is a good example; it was recorded, mixed, and mastered on analog tape with no compression. The CD version sounds great, but the vinyl is divine and his virtuosity on the guitar is readily evident.

In your example of the latest Metallica release, try to get your hands on the Guitar Hero version of the album - it is uncompressed. That's right, the version made for the video game is better for audiophile level equipment. Why? Likely they didn't spend the time and money on mixing/mastering for that version than on the commercial release.

...and then there's Mr. Tom Petty...who made sure that in the recent Mudcrutch release, NO compression was used. Classy guy...

For sure compression would sound harsh on Tom Petty's ATC speakers. I find Tom Petty's CDs are often extremely well recorded: his careful attention to sound quality is probably only exceeded by Pink Floyd.

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of great recordings out there! Many are old, but they can be found. As indicated by others, there are very few current artists that care about sound quality. Look for the older gems and you won't be disappointed.

Are most artists and producers moving away from "audiophile" type of recording? I would say for the most part, yes. The days are long gone by when people had a dedicated two-channel system and while maybe they couldn't afford SOTA equipment, certainly were aware of the sonic benefits that such such systems could deliver, and certainly wanted the recording they were purchasing to be able to deliver everything their systems could deliver. Nowadays it seems it's more about "quantity over quality". People don't care how good a recording sounds as long as they can download as many recordings as they can. The Ipod and MP3 generation only cares about "how much" and not about "how good" the music recordings that they get. Unfortunately to many artists and producers are more than willing to cater to that mindset and give them their super-compressed mixes. Support "Turn It Up".

The trend toward compressed recordings must be only in certain genre's. I have found considerabel dynamic range in recently recorded classical music CD's. A number of months ago I was talking to folks in the mixing / recording end of the business, albeit working primarily in hip-hop - they claimed that there was simply less compression in classical recordings. However, from my subjective perspective, I don't find it. Indeed, Vanska's recent recording of Beethoven's Eroica for example could not be listened to without having the peaks at 90 dB or better, you simply would not hear the softer sections. I don't think this is my hearing as my last hearing test - a couple years ago, had me within 5 dB of reference from 250 to 8k, the test range. I have listened to some remasters of rock music and was rather surprised to see the needle on the power meter of my amp pretty much sit in one spot.

More disturbing is some of the transfers to CD seem to have changed the music in other ways. For eg. the White Album on CD does not sound like the old vinyl. Even G. Harrison said that he heard sounds on the CD that he did not know were there. Would be curios to hear if anyone else can point to specific transfers of other 60's 70's rock with the similar changes - (that is, other than compression).