2007 recording quality inferior to that of 1956??

[Kaboom]

So i'm listening to one of my fave Jazz albums, Chet Baker quartet plays standards. Recorded in mono in 1955 and now on a Gitanes Jazz 2001 CD.
Even though the recording is old and mono, I can't help but notice how much more natural and dynamic it sounds compared to the albums recorded and mastered nowadays.
I gather its not becaue of the technology but rather about how carefully it was recorded and mastered...
i think it sucks that today we have such marvelous recording and mastering technology and nobody takes advantage of it, and back in the day when the engineers worked hard to make it sound as good as possible, they had to deal with their crappy equipment
just a thought.

[3-LockBox]

<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" width="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">Because the people involved at the top are business men and not artists or technicians. With the advent of MP3 technology, and the internet, and people's love for convenience and bargains, MP3 downloading became popular. Problem is, the first generation MP3s that were downloaded to P2P groups weren't done by professionals; they weren't even done by concerned ametures; they were done by lazy lumps who cared more about hard drive space than sound quality. Since most people had crappy computer speakers, this didn't matter. It was all about finger tip access and cheapness. And, being that low bitrate MP3s are compressed as hell, they can have an artificial loudness quality to them. So people (OK lets lay the blame where it belongs), college kids, got used to hearing the wretched sound quality and normalized it. Afterall, its more important that music play on a computer than one of those stand alone CD players, and its free! You mean you wouldn't eschew sound quality for FREE music?

Enter the suit. Someone got the idea that the kids just love that compressed sound, and if we make CDs sound like MP3s, but much louder, we'll get our market back. I've read where sound engineers have been given directives to make the final mix as loud as possible, so that kids will want the louder product. Their thinking that that their target audience is only listening on boomboxes and portable players also plays in the equation.

Well, that's my theory anyway, as weak and simplistic as it is. Maybe someone else has a better expalination. But I can't help but sell short and question the illogical 'louder is better' mentallity that goes into making such over compressed music CDs these days. I'd love to hear it straight from the horse's mouth, if he weren't looking to sue the crap out his customers that is.


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