The Death of High Fidelity

[tc-60guy]

Good morning all, More years ago than I'd care to contemplate, I had a headphone rig which consisted of an old, tube(el 84s I think) Zenith Fm receiver which I'd yanked out of one of those "portable" stereos where the speakers swing out and the turntable drops down. I used this to drive a pair of Numark electrostatic headphones. With the aid of a rooftop antenna the sound was incredeble! The best of the best were the live broadcasts of the Philadelphia orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormande. To this day I've not heard better sounding, sweeter, more soul nourishing music! Back then they really cared for FM radio and sound in general. If they used any compression, I'll eat my hat. I feel privliged to have been around back in the day when giants strode the earth. MP3s?................THRIPPPPPPPP!!!

[darkfenriz]

Dynamic range compression is one of the worst enemies of good sound.

Oh, Pavel, please do not generalize.
Again, the MISUSE of dynamic compression is bad, not the compression itself. Same as clipping/harmonic distortion, we owe all the rock and planty of blues and pop to this nasty THD.
Back to compression, one may actually create great sounds with conscious use of compressor, especially when applied to a single track.
Too much compression (1:4 and more with bad timing) at the mastering stage to please the average FM listener in their car is the other thing.

Regards
Adam