[lenzm]

I don't like the results of the loudness war either but it isn't objectively worse. Lots of people are listening to music on cheap speakers over the sound of road noise while driving or with generic earbuds on a train or any number of situations not conducive to high dynamic ranges. To these people in these situations, the highly compressed music sounds better.

[DropInIn]

Imo musicians need to make it a norm to release two 'correct' verions:

The highly compressed versions for radio play/commoners

And

A 'hi-fi' version for audiophiles

They need to be the same except for levels etc, and neither more official than the other

If your song can't be enjoyed in both ways, then either your music is 'specialty' music catering to audiophiles and musicophiles (?) Or it's just garbage and shouldn't be released regardless.

But that opinion may be a major cause for myself never releasing anything....

[l72]

Why don’t we have an audio format that has different profiles with different mixes?

[DropInIn]

In a world of limitless storage that makes sense but for users who have music locally on thier phone not so much...

The actual use cases for each form undermine consolidation into one file.