One other point I think worth mentioning (touched on by Lawrence) is that if all this great high end analog gear has an optimum working range would it not be safe to assume that most consumer grade gear does too?
If audiophile preamps and converters couldn't handle recording super-loud -5 RMS (high voltage) sources going in without some compromise in quality, why should people expect consumer grade gear to perform optimally under those conditions on the way out?
The reason hyper-compressed music often sounds shitty may have as much to do with the digital 1's and 0's as the fact that the playback system and speakers are designed to sound best with the volume in a certain range rather than having the music compressed to -5 RMS and the playback volume at -20. This is just an inference so someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.
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