Article in WSJ about compressed dynamic range

I agree with the record companies. Compression is necessary for the vast majority of consumer listening situations where the quietest sounds would be obscured by ambient sound, such as in outside mp3 player use, or automotive applications and the largest peaks would exceed the capabilites of most similar consumer playback gear. Regression to the mean is a good thing. Audiophiles, generally are a higly vocal population that is but a small sub-set of the buying public. The record companies would surely starve by catering to the high-end set, not that they aren't eating cat food already due to the downloading issues.

Viridian, wouldn't it make more sense for manufactures of electronics geared for small, budget, or portable use have an eq switch for such instances, than to forever damage historic documentations of musical performances?

Of course. And the listening situation argument doesn't hold water with me. I was listening to my car stereos in in the vehicles I've owned since the early 70s and the music never sounded as crap as a Foo Fighter, Nirvana, Metallica, Green Day song sounds now. And cars were a lot noisier inside then than they are today.

Why saddle consumers with extra cost, no matter how small, in their music replay devices to satisfy a miniscule part of the population? This is market driven, not some aestetic decision made by engineers. The elitist minority is welcome to vote with their pocketbooks; no one is required to buy anything that is not consonant with their artistic sensibility, no matter how frail.

Unsound, one small correction. EQ is different from compression so an EQ switch on consumer electronics, which most alread have, would not fit the bill. There are many excellent articles, like the one referenced at the head of this thread, that explain compression, as opposed to EQ.