[Andrew Werby]

I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

[Serge Auckland]

"Andrew Werby" wrote in message
...
I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in
simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the
tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio


The "Jazz at the Pawnshop" CDs (three volumes) are truly excellent at
conveying sound images. Try also Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman's Woman. This
CD is probably the best recorded CD in my collection. You can almost reach
out and touch the soloist.

S.

--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com

[Mike Mueller]

Andrew Werby wrote:
I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

If you can get a copy of Duke Ellingtons Three Suites ( Columbia Jazz
Masterpieces #ck 46825} you will be amazed.
It is his take on Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suites.
The Sound stage is very wide and when your system is properly set up,
you can sit with your eye's closed and "see" the 3 tiers of the big band.
It's a great set up and show off cd
Mike Mueller

[MRC01]

On Sep 6, 3:21 pm, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:
I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space.

Two recordings from my recommended listening list:

Brahms, Beethoven Trios for Piano, Clarinet & Cello; Ax, Stolzman &
Ma; 1995; Sony SK57499

This one is one of the most natural, dynamic chamber music recordings
I have heard. There are only 3 musicians so the image is not huge but
it has precise placement and depth. Very realistic. It's also a fire
breathing performance of great music.

Arc Choir, Walk with Me; 1997; Mapleshade 04132

The image is wide and deep yet with pinpoint precision. But unlike
many wide soundstages which tend to sound diffuse, you can hear not
only the position of the soloists as they sing and walk around, but
you can also pinpoint the location of each of the individual
background singers.

Also most of the RCA Victor recordings from the 1960s have excellent
imaging. I find most modern large ensemble works to have an
unrealistic sound stage. To my ears that immense yet diffuse sound
stage sounds more like multi-miced mono than true stereo. I suppose
that is expected considering the arrays of mics used to record them.
The old RCA Victors were recorded with only 2 or 3 tracks and they
capture true stereo imagery amazingly well. Chesky and Classic records
have excellent reissues on CD, and Classic still has some on LP as
well.

[Andrew Werby]

Thanks for the recommendations, guys! I found "Jazz at the Pawnshop" at
www.elusivedisc.com; Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman's Woman was at
http://www.cduniverse.com; Duke Ellingtons Three Suites showed up on
www.amazon.com; Brahms, Beethoven Trios for Piano, Clarinet & Cello; Ax,
Stolzman & Ma; 1995; Sony SK57499 was at http://www.sonymusicstore.com, and
the Arc Choir, Walk with Me; 1997; Mapleshade 04132 was found on
www.netsoundsmusic.com. I can't wait for all this to arrive...

I'll do a little more research into those older RCA Victor recordings, but
any specific recommendations would be nice. I agree, the sixties were the
golden age of stereo recording, before the engineers took over and started
micing everyone separately, then jamming all the tracks together anyhow with
no regard for realistic soundstage imaging. Rock-n-roll has been the biggest
offender, since it is difficult to get good sound from the individual
instruments and voices without spillover from the drums, and everything's
coming through amplifiers anyway. Does anybody know of any rock/pop albums
on CD that buck that trend?

Andrew Werby

Gaki Audio

[Cees]

Andrew Werby wrote:
Thanks for the recommendations, guys! I found "Jazz at the Pawnshop" at
www.elusivedisc.com; Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman's Woman was at
http://www.cduniverse.com; Duke Ellingtons Three Suites showed up on
www.amazon.com; Brahms, Beethoven Trios for Piano, Clarinet & Cello; Ax,
Stolzman & Ma; 1995; Sony SK57499 was at http://www.sonymusicstore.com, and
the Arc Choir, Walk with Me; 1997; Mapleshade 04132 was found on
www.netsoundsmusic.com. I can't wait for all this to arrive...

I'll do a little more research into those older RCA Victor recordings, but
any specific recommendations would be nice. I agree, the sixties were the
golden age of stereo recording, before the engineers took over and started
micing everyone separately, then jamming all the tracks together anyhow with
no regard for realistic soundstage imaging. Rock-n-roll has been the biggest
offender, since it is difficult to get good sound from the individual
instruments and voices without spillover from the drums, and everything's
coming through amplifiers anyway. Does anybody know of any rock/pop albums
on CD that buck that trend?

Andrew Werby

Gaki Audio


Mari Boine: Gula Gula. A pop recording as they all shoud be, although
the stereo image is artificial. Other CD's of her, are nice recoded too.
Lou Reed: New York. A couple of tracks have a stereo image, even with depth.
Ry Cooder: Jazz. Other albums of RC are also rather decent recorded

Cees

[MRC01]

On Sep 8, 5:45 pm, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:
I'll do a little more research into those older RCA Victor recordings, but
any specific recommendations would be nice.
...

Here are three reissues to get you started:

Moussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition, Chesky RC30

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto #2, Chesky CR2

I have the Chesky 180 HQ vinyl for both of these. Dunno whether they
still press the vinyl, or whether the CD version has the same stereo
imaging. I suspect it does, since the CDs I burn myself from the LP do
have the same great stereo image.

Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, BMG LSC-2374

I have the BMG single sided 45 RPM 200 gram vinyl for this. Same
comment above applies.

[rcs3]

On Sep 6, 6:21 pm, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:
I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

Oscar Peterson's "We get Requests" is excellent. Drums on the left,
piano front and center, bass on the right. A truly great example of
sound stage image and depth. The tunes are good listening also!

Rick

[Rob[_8_]]

The CD I usually use for "Critical Listening" is "Eye Of The Beholder" by
the Chick Corea Electric Band. It is one of the best Fusion Jazz recordings
I've heard. Chick's piano sweeps across the soundstage.
Depth, height and width are remarkable.

"Andrew Werby" wrote in message
...
I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in
simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the
tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

[http://www.wenterprisesnorthwest.com]

Several I have found to be pretty good:

Alice in Chains - Unplugged (the entire CD)
AC/DC - Back in Black (track 1 and track 6)
Stone Temple Pilots - Core (track 7 is my favorite)
Soundgarden - Superunknown (track 7 and track 15)

Also, the venerable Dark Side of the Moon gives you a broad soundstage
presense. And one that I always recommend, although not rock, and
completely instrumental, is Jacques Loussier - Plays Bach, which I say all
audiophiles should have in their collection as as one of their reference
CDs -I do.

"Andrew Werby" wrote in message
...
I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in
simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the
tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

[David E. Bath]

In article ,
"http://www.wenterprisesnorthwest.com" writes:
Several I have found to be pretty good:

Alice in Chains - Unplugged (the entire CD)

Agreed, this is an excellent CD.

AC/DC - Back in Black (track 1 and track 6)

I just got the remasterd version and it's even better.

An obscure one that I keep mentioning is Sammy Hagar "Marching to
Mars". Amazing soundstage and clarty. Kick drums sound like real kick
drums and cymbals sound like real cymbals, as well as everything
in between.

--
David Bath - RAHE Co-moderator

[Steven Sullivan]

David E. Bath wrote:
In article ,
"http://www.wenterprisesnorthwest.com" writes:
Several I have found to be pretty good:

Alice in Chains - Unplugged (the entire CD)

Agreed, this is an excellent CD.

AC/DC - Back in Black (track 1 and track 6)

I just got the remasterd version and it's even better.

well, louder, certainly

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[MRC01]

On Sep 7, 3:34 pm, "Serge Auckland"
wrote:
... Try also Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman's Woman.
This CD is probably the best recorded CD in my collection. You can almost reach
out and touch the soloist.

Out of curiousity, I just got a copy. When the first track started, I
was surprised how loud it was, being just guitar and voice. The
"quiet" parts of this CD are so boosted it has very little dynamic
range. Analysis of the waveform showed the same thing. And the dynamic
peaks are clipped in several of the songs. I mean clipped in the
actual digital waveform, not clipped during playback.

It's unfortunate because I do like the music and she has a... well...
interesting voice. I mean that in a good way. It's not her fault
the studio decided to dynamically compress the recording.

I find this is all too common in modern recording. Everyone is trying
to get his album to sound louder and punchier so you can hear it
better on FM radio, a boombox or in a car or other noisy environment.
The result is recordings that are produced with dynamic compression,
resulting in an unnatural lack of dynamics and fatiguing listening.

BTW, here is a good article on this:
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articl...nd-forever.htm

[[email protected]]

On 6 Sep 2007 22:21:44 GMT, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:

I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

My favorite for this kind of thing is Tom Waits "Shore Leave" on
Beautiful Maladies

--
zuzubolin
l

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 1 Apr 2008 17:19:59 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On 6 Sep 2007 22:21:44 GMT, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:

I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

My favorite for this kind of thing is Tom Waits "Shore Leave" on
Beautiful Maladies



In classical, most of the Mercury Living Presence CDs recorded by C.R. Fine
really image well as do any of the early RCA Red Seal "Living Stereo"
releases from the 50's and 60's. Especially those recorded by Louis Layton.
Most current Telarcs image well as do the SFS (San Francisco Symphony) label.
The recent Michael Tilton Thomas series of Mahler Symphonies is especially
noteworthy. I'd try the Mahler First and Second Symphonies initially. You
might also try Reference Recordings. Any classical or Jazz recording made by
Professor Kieth O. Johnson on that label will image very well. Try the new
Clark Terry "The Chicago Sessions" CD on Reference. Generally speaking, jazz
albums have a tendancy to have been recorded in three-channel mono, but their
are exceptions. Any of the Chesky jazz recordings have nice imaging and
soundstage. Also, The JVC XRCD remasters of much of Rudy Van Gelder's
recordings for Prestige and Moodsville and Riverside in the later 1950's and
early 1960's of people such as Coleman Hawkins, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk,
et al are very good. Be careful though, a lot of this stuff is mono.

My advice is to go to Musical Surroundings. com and browse their extensive CD
catalogue for the labels and artists that I outlined above. Don't worry that
the Mercurys and RCA "Living Stereo" Titles are SACD, they have a regular CD
layer on them and will play just fine on your current player.

[Rick[_4_]]

Try the Oscar Peterson Trio "We Get Requests". It has a great slap bass,
drums and piano. They are all very well located in the soundstage.

Rick
wrote in message ...
On 6 Sep 2007 22:21:44 GMT, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:

I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in
simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the
tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

My favorite for this kind of thing is Tom Waits "Shore Leave" on
Beautiful Maladies

--
zuzubolin
l

[Steve[_15_]]

Diana Krell recordings are exellent - any I have heard so far.

[Sonnova]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:33:31 -0700, Rick wrote
(in article ):

Try the Oscar Peterson Trio "We Get Requests". It has a great slap bass,
drums and piano. They are all very well located in the soundstage.

Sure they are well located in space. They are mono-miked and panned to those
positions. The way I understand Rick's request he's looking for real stereo
imaging, not mult-miked, multi-channel mono. Most traditional jazz and rock
recordings do not qualify. Of course, there are bound to be exceptions...

Rick
wrote in message ...
On 6 Sep 2007 22:21:44 GMT, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:

I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in
simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the
tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

My favorite for this kind of thing is Tom Waits "Shore Leave" on
Beautiful Maladies

--
zuzubolin
l

[Curmudgeon]

On 6 Sep 2007 22:21:44 GMT, "Andrew Werby"
wrote:

I'm looking for some stereo music recordings that show off the stereo
effect - creating a "sound image" that locates various instruments and
voices discretely in space. This tends to be more common in
simply-recorded
orchestral pieces, less so in pop music which seems to crowd all the
tracks
into the center of the sound-stage. I'm not looking for surround-coded
pieces or something that requires a special player, just good music of
various types (classical, jazz, rock, etc.) on CD without obvious
compression artifacts. Any recomendations for pieces where the sound image
really shines?

Andrew Werby
Gaki Audio

Although I think the LP is even better, the CD issue of Paul Simon's
Graceland album is very fine for imaging and sound-stage (especially
the track "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes").

Cheers!

Mudge

--
Life is change: How it differs from the rocks!
I've seen their ways too often for my liking.
New worlds to gain:*My life is to survive . . .
And be alive for you.

[Steven Sullivan]

Of course, if the recording is a multi-tracked affair where
parts recorded at different times were mixed together, then
whatever 'image' exists is purely synthetic.

So perhaps you should look for 'live' recordings....though
albums advertised as 'live' are often 'sweetened' or
'fixed' with overdubs

___
-S
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_sheep

[Rich R]

Steve wrote:

Diana Krell recordings are exellent - any I have heard so far.

I agree the Diana Krall albums are excellent, but I notice that a lot of her
albums are mastered by Doug Sax of The Mastering Lab and most albums I've
heard mastered by him sound excellent. I recently purchased some Randy
Travis cd's and immediately noticed how good they sounded, and when I
looked at the credits, there was Doug again. I remember some time ago
reading an article about the loudness wars and how they were ruining the
sound quality of modern cd's by over compression thereby destroying the
dynamic range of the recordings. I can remember that Doug Sax commented
that he was opposed to the loudness wars. Maybe he masters for dynamic
range rather than just trying to make the cd sound louder?

[Steven Sullivan]

Rich R wrote:
Steve wrote:

Diana Krell recordings are exellent - any I have heard so far.

I agree the Diana Krall albums are excellent, but I notice that a lot of her
albums are mastered by Doug Sax of The Mastering Lab and most albums I've
heard mastered by him sound excellent. I recently purchased some Randy
Travis cd's and immediately noticed how good they sounded, and when I
looked at the credits, there was Doug again. I remember some time ago
reading an article about the loudness wars and how they were ruining the
sound quality of modern cd's by over compression thereby destroying the
dynamic range of the recordings. I can remember that Doug Sax commented
that he was opposed to the loudness wars. Maybe he masters for dynamic
range rather than just trying to make the cd sound louder?

Sax may be opposed to the loudness wars, but he is by no means opposed
to reducing dynamic range. His most recent Pink FLoyd catalog remasters
are louder than the previous ones, and as both were claimed to be from
original master tapes, that can only have occured via DR reduction.
Still, the amount of DR reduction applied, is small compared to typical
modern remastering.

--
___
-S
maybe they wanna rock.
maybe they need to rock.
Maybe it's for the money? But That's none of our business..our business as fans is to rock
with them.

[student[_3_]]

On 2008-04-05, Rich R wrote:
Steve wrote:

Diana Krell recordings are exellent - any I have heard so far.

I agree the Diana Krall albums are excellent, but I notice that a lot of her
albums are mastered by Doug Sax of The Mastering Lab and most albums I've
heard mastered by him sound excellent. I recently purchased some Randy
Travis cd's and immediately noticed how good they sounded, and when I
looked at the credits, there was Doug again. I remember some time ago
reading an article about the loudness wars and how they were ruining the
sound quality of modern cd's by over compression thereby destroying the
dynamic range of the recordings. I can remember that Doug Sax commented
that he was opposed to the loudness wars. Maybe he masters for dynamic
range rather than just trying to make the cd sound louder?

a bit off topic but the loudness wars have spilled over to tv shows.
e.g. discovery, history & national geographic set their "background" music
to very loud to drown out what the narrator's comments/narrative.; but it
could be that the scripts are so bad, loud music is a "coverup".

[Walt]

student wrote:

a bit off topic but the loudness wars have spilled over to tv shows.

Broadcast audio, and FM radio in particular, was the origin of the
loudness wars. It predates CD technology by several years -
broadcasters have been squashing the crap out of audio since the 70's.

//Walt

[Steve LeDuke]

The idea behind a good digital master is to bring out certain
frequencies of the mix. What a lot of seasoned mastering engineers who
are opposed to the whole "loudness wars" thing is use multi-band
compression to compress certain frequency ranges and bring out certain
parts of the mix the mix engineer didn't bring out in the mixing
process. In my experience brickwall limiting are used to limit any
volume added by any other piece of hardware (or plugin for those who use
a DAW) and a good brickwall limiter should be able to attenuate the
signal to a certain degree.

Typically my favorite CDs are recordings that are loud but not smashed
so there's a good balance between loudness and dynamic range. I'm all
for dynamic range but I still want to be able to hear my CDs in the car
or on my iPod when I'm on the bus.

When I'm at home I listen to vinyl and that's a completely different
animal altogether!

Steven Sullivan wrote:
Rich R wrote:
Steve wrote:

Diana Krell recordings are exellent - any I have heard so far.

I agree the Diana Krall albums are excellent, but I notice that a lot of her
albums are mastered by Doug Sax of The Mastering Lab and most albums I've
heard mastered by him sound excellent. I recently purchased some Randy
Travis cd's and immediately noticed how good they sounded, and when I
looked at the credits, there was Doug again. I remember some time ago
reading an article about the loudness wars and how they were ruining the
sound quality of modern cd's by over compression thereby destroying the
dynamic range of the recordings. I can remember that Doug Sax commented
that he was opposed to the loudness wars. Maybe he masters for dynamic
range rather than just trying to make the cd sound louder?

Sax may be opposed to the loudness wars, but he is by no means opposed
to reducing dynamic range. His most recent Pink FLoyd catalog remasters
are louder than the previous ones, and as both were claimed to be from
original master tapes, that can only have occured via DR reduction.
Still, the amount of DR reduction applied, is small compared to typical
modern remastering.

[Steven Sullivan]

Steve LeDuke wrote:
The idea behind a good digital master is to bring out certain
frequencies of the mix. What a lot of seasoned mastering engineers who
are opposed to the whole "loudness wars" thing is use multi-band
compression to compress certain frequency ranges and bring out certain
parts of the mix the mix engineer didn't bring out in the mixing
process. In my experience brickwall limiting are used to limit any
volume added by any other piece of hardware (or plugin for those who use
a DAW) and a good brickwall limiter should be able to attenuate the
signal to a certain degree.

Typically my favorite CDs are recordings that are loud but not smashed
so there's a good balance between loudness and dynamic range. I'm all
for dynamic range but I still want to be able to hear my CDs in the car
or on my iPod when I'm on the bus.

Then those devices should have compressors built into them, rather
than hard-coding the compression into the CD! It's absurd to cripple
CD simply because you want to be able to hear everything on it in a
noisy environment.

When I'm at home I listen to vinyl and that's a completely different
animal altogether!

And it's absurd to suggest that people should have to use a compromised
and balky format like LP, in order to get a semblance of natural dynamic
range in their home audio.

--
-S
Poe's Law: Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humorous
intent, it is impossible to create a parody of a religious Fundamentalist that
SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.

[Sonnova]

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 10:39:21 -0700, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

Steve LeDuke wrote:
The idea behind a good digital master is to bring out certain
frequencies of the mix. What a lot of seasoned mastering engineers who
are opposed to the whole "loudness wars" thing is use multi-band
compression to compress certain frequency ranges and bring out certain
parts of the mix the mix engineer didn't bring out in the mixing
process. In my experience brickwall limiting are used to limit any
volume added by any other piece of hardware (or plugin for those who use
a DAW) and a good brickwall limiter should be able to attenuate the
signal to a certain degree.

Typically my favorite CDs are recordings that are loud but not smashed
so there's a good balance between loudness and dynamic range. I'm all
for dynamic range but I still want to be able to hear my CDs in the car
or on my iPod when I'm on the bus.

Then those devices should have compressors built into them, rather
than hard-coding the compression into the CD! It's absurd to cripple
CD simply because you want to be able to hear everything on it in a
noisy environment.

I agree, 100%. Put a variable compressor in the car's audio playback system.
Don't compromise the recording on the CD mastering end.

When I'm at home I listen to vinyl and that's a completely different
animal altogether!

And it's absurd to suggest that people should have to use a compromised
and balky format like LP, in order to get a semblance of natural dynamic
range in their home audio.

OTOH, many people simply LIKE LP. Or, they have favorite LP performances that
have never (or likely WILL never) appear on CD.