[mbenjaminsmith]

> Unfortunately, this kind of "optimizing for all cases" comes at the expense of how good the music can sound in any one environment.

Sorry, but that's not the case. The reason music gets mastered poorly today is because of poor mastering engineers. I've had this conversation numerous times with an engineer that has designed some of the most well-received studio equipment (including analog compressors) ever made.

Listen to The Dark Side of the Moon. Regardless of your like or dislike of Pink Floyd that album sounds good regardless of how you're playing it (car stereo, single speaker boom box, headphones).

Now why there aren't many good mastering engineers left (or properly equipped studios) is a separate, lengthy conversation.

[Kiro]

I think you are wrong. Due to the rise of the bedroom producer and available software we've never before had so many talented sound engineers. The production value on electronic music today is through the roof.

[fuzzfactor]

Also, due to the rise of the bedroom producer and available software we've never before had so many UNtalented sound engineers.

[Kiro]

Of course, but the competition is fierce.

[soundwave106]

I don't think today's professional mastering engineers are "poor" necessarily; some of this I think is marketing pressure. The Loudness War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war) is a real thing and a large part of the decrease in modern mastering quality, in my opinion.

The thing is, this mastering technique has some upsides for both casual listening (it will stand out more from the rest of the pack) and also will sound "louder" on poor equipment without necessarily exceeding the equipment's capabilities. The significant downside is that a lot of the detail is lost at best, and at worst you get very audible clipping / distortion or unnatural "pumping" effects. So not good at all for those that go deeper in their music.

"Optimizing for all cases" might help end this loudness war though. Many of the online streaming services (Youtube, Spotify, iTunes, etc.) have some optimizing routines that aim for consistency in volume level. The net result is that extremely over-compressed music sound dull and flaccid.

Many articles recommend more sensible overall loudness levels now... although I haven't seen a specific LUFS number to hit, like there is for European television (EBU R128), aiming for something like -16LUFS as this article mentions is a much better situation than before.

See: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb14/articles/loudness-war...

[radiowave]

I'm certainly not claiming it's the reason why music gets mastered poorly today, only that things like representation of space, dynamic range, audibility of fine detail vs. making the music sound too cluttered, are and always have been trade-offs.

As far as why things are worse lately, mastering engineers are working for hire. If people think they're producing bad work, it's probably at their client's behest.

[forgetsusername]

Sounding good on many systems doesn't mean it couldn't have sounded better on any particular system had it been mastered with that particular setup in mind.

The idea that there is some magic mastering ability that can overcome the pitfalls of the vast array of listening environments and equipment is exactly the type mumbojumbo the OP mentions. The audio world depends on it.