The Loudness War, What is it, What does it mean for Music?

The Loudness war is slightly less epic in actuality than it sounds, but to music lovers and audiophiles it is an enemy. So what is the Loudness War, Why is it a war, and what effect does it have on our music. The loudness war started around the mid 1980s when more and more people were listening to music on headphones and earbuds rather than on home hi-fi stereos. The headphones that came with a Walkman cassette player in the 1980s were very different than the loudspeakers found in almost any home in the 70s. The headphones that so many people were listening to music on did't have as much low-end response or volume as loudspeakers. Music producers and sound engineers knew this so they started mixing music to sound best on those little headphones, this meant they had to compensate for the shortcomings of headphones by adding more compression to music. By compressing music, you took out the nuances and details that couldn't be heard as well on smaller headphones, and boosted all the easily heard frequencies. This resulted in music that sounded much louder, louder music gave the impression of better sound, because aspects like bass and vocals were more easily heard on cheaper headphones. Ever since then sound engineers and music producers have been using more and more compression on music, and making it louder and louder, thus the Loudness War.

You may be thinking, what is so wrong about that, music is being mixed to sound best on our earbuds and in our cars, isn't that good? Not quite, because to make music sound it's best on the tiny little earbuds that come with cell phones, you sacrifice the fidelity of that music. This means that when music enthusiasts go and listen to that music on full range speaker systems it sounds very harsh, the bass is so overpowering, the music has no nuance, it just sounds horrible. This in the grand scheme of things is not a pressing issue, but the fact that there is enough debate over it shows that people do care. I think that audio manufacturers shouldn't leave it to musicians and sound engineers to correct their mistakes. The Loudness war should really be a thing of the past now, because consumer electronic brands like Bose, Sony, and Audio-Technica are actually making good sounding headphones, the technology has come a long way since the 1980s, so Music Producers and Sound Engineers should stop being lazy, and start making good sounding music again. So that was a brief explanation of the Loudness war, and some of my personal thoughts on the matter, who knows if it will ever go away, but there are other more important issues so for now it is what it is.