The other day I dug out an old CD from 1985 (Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits) and the average level of all the cuts is much softer than anything recent. But there's more room for the peaks to go, and they do. When I turned the first cut (So Far Away) to a good listening level, that snare just went through me on every off beat. So cool to be reminded of a time when music fans loved that visceral impact. *sigh*

I wish CD changers and iPod-type devices would come out with a function to scan the levels of every song and adjust the playback level to compensate. That'd help I think.