Meanwhile, what really scares me the most as a consumer is my fear of
the possibility that much of what is being and has already been passed
off as "digitally remastered stuff" to a sonically illiterate public is
really nothing more than the "same old stuff" with a simple,
"normalization" applied to boost the amplitude.

Okay, lesson two:

The many of the original CDs were produced from the master tapes used to
make LPs. In fact, there is a design in the CD format called de-emphasis,
which removes the RIAA curve used for making LPs from the CD signal so CD
producers could save time getting CDs out. If you ever see the "EMP"
indicator on your CD display, you are playing a CD made from a tape mastered
for LP.

When people like MFSL and others proved there was a huge market for using
the original master tapes (those the producer loved the most), they began
"re-mastering" from the original multi-track recordings. However, they did
not intend to change the sound from the original intent of the artists or
producers, they just wanted to create a CD that most closely resembled what
they heard when they mastered the tapes in the first place.

Along the way, the industry decided that using the noise floor as the
reference for the loudness of a recording was not the best idea. They
instead switched to using 0dBFS as their reference for the highest peak in
the recording. In the past couple of years they have started chopping off
the peaks with limiters and compressors and a thing called an "distresser"
to get the average level as high as possible. The goal being to have the
loudest sounding CD on the market, thus better sounding on the radio
(remember my comments about the perception of louder music?).

Also, I recently purchased some "remastered" CDs where they have not
attempted to replicate the original sound the artists and producers got.
Instead they have used different effect processors and added serious
compression to make the classic music sound similar to the current trendy
crap.

But you see, tastes have changed and they no longer primarily produce music
for LP.

- FLINT