Can CD's be loud and ok?

Ben,

I'm sure I'll stand corrected if I'm wrong but when CD's are mixed so that the quiet passages are too loud then that is compression. A whisper should be a whisper, not a shout. That's my complaint with so many of today's CD's. It seems that the artists must like the "hot" sound. I would think that distortion would occur only when the signal is too much for the circuitry invovled.

Yes Lugnut and I agree I state the last Jayhawks CD as one that's been messed up-it's too forward and the distortion is in fact obvious.
I'm not arguing that happens but take the likes of Sea Change by Beck-rated highly as a recording-that CD is loud.

Lugnet gets it. It is not necessary for the recording to have other types of distortion just because it is dynamically compressed. But realize that, even though it may sound good, compression is distortion since it is a deviation from the original sound.

Ok I'll put it another way because I am still confused.
Is it possible to make a good recording without compression and the CD sound reasonably loud.
No?
Yes?

The latest Steely Dan release is mixed loud, but it sounds quite good. The audible distortion you hear on some records is because at some point in the recording process they exceeded digital zero. Sometimes this is done by accident, and though it's hard to believe, sometimes it's done on purpose. To call an engineer's use of compression distortion is to miss it's creative uses. Virtually all of your classic (60's - 80's) rock has used compression as a creative device. Check out the Kinks "All Day & All of the Night". One of the reasons alot of professionals love recording to analog tape is the gentle compression effect it gives. Vinyl mastering also has some well known compression artifacts.