I think it boils down to what you are shooting for. I know my goal is to make superior recordings of artists with the highest fidelity I can achieve, and then make them as compatible with as many formats as possible. I would give it all up if that wasn't an option. If people want to hear it sound bad, that is their choice. They can also hear it good if they want to make the investment. It does no good to complain about people with bad taste. They are all over the place, and more susceptible to marketing and therefore easier to make a buck off of. If you want to be rich, target them. You can still make great sounding music for yourself and those with discerning tastes. 

Royal, yours or not what you posted seemed strange because the thread had sort of come to a conclusion. Your post appears to disregard that. 
 
Your solution would have various mixes out and about for ever. Don't believe that people will follow your instructions and play the right mix on the right gear. 

John, I was thinking I don't remember reading (skimming or otherwise) anything about this? But it matters not, for my suggestion was not even slightly serious...
 
Perhaps I could request Cake to include sarcastic font in the forum?
 

Well, when you're listening to crappy music, who really cares if it sounds like crap? 

Crappy music is incredibly subjective and kind of irrelevant since a lot of people who record what you consider crappy music also record stuff you like and take the same approach.  I find mos tof these threads denigrate into the typical "todays music sucks (except for the artists I deem are an exception) and yesterdays music is beyond reproach.  Of course this ignores the fact that many of the people some of us consider legends were considered "crappy music" by the grumpy old guys of the previous generation.  I'm not saying I'm a big fan of every new trend, but blaming the loudness wars on today's music is just plain silly.  Radios stations and clubs took advantage of digital music's ability to cram everything up to 0db  not long after the technical possibility became easy and affordable.

This thread sounds like a lot of old farts sitting around the campfire jousting about the old days, it's the earbud generation vs. the dolby generation . . .
. . . wait a minute. . . . let me grab a beer from the cooler and pull up a lawn chair . . .
 
These recent threads find me fighting the urge to go out and buy some cheap earbuds, because I have some amazing Sennheiser headphones that sound great !
 
I was so glad to see the cassette tape era die a slow death, where your mixes sounded different on every stereo it was played on, so much so that if MP3's and earbuds
are here for a while, that may be alright. I'm sure the next round of audio playback technology will fix all this. I'm actually more worried about the current state of songwriting in the industry, than the media it's played back through. Oh well, just makes me appreciate classical music, and live show music all the more.
 
There's also this thing I'm hearing on the radio lately, squashed and compressed, dynamically void, sounds good in the car in traffic, but play it 10 minutes on my living room hi-fi system, and I just want find a quiet corner and pluck my acoustic guitar.
 
Anyways, some great comments here, I've had a lot of laughs on this thread, thanks guys and gals for cheering up my Friday night.
Think I'll head over to the songs forum for a bit . . .

RickJP909

robert_e_boneNow THAT is funny - and sad. Bob Bone 

What's even funnier and sad Bob is the fact that the ear buds have now been replaced by expensive Beats Dr Dre Solo's!!!  So we have people downloading poor-quality MP3s from iTunes (being the biggest retailer) and on to their iPhones or iPods (poor quality playback device, but yet people will happily pay premium for them) and then played back in Beats Solo HDs (premium price for these too)! Q: So where's the logic of shoving HQ-Audio converted to compressed low quality audio and shoved through high quality expensive headphones?

A: There isn't any logic behind it, it's just about pure image - they look good and trendy!

I bet I could play you the song of your choice downloaded from iTunes on your pick of apple device on your pick of stereo system and you would have a difficult time in a blind AB test with a CD as long as the volumes were equal.

I still buy records and record to tape. But I definitely see a place for MP3 players and MP3s.

Tapes hiss and always needed adjustment in the player to avoid lossing high end. I always turned Dolby off as I would rather hear the hiss than have all the high end cut out. Plus tapes got eaten and degraded. Copies lost noticeable sound quality.

Records pop and crackle, warp and in general need a lot of care.

An MP3 player hooked to a car radio properly sounds much better than the FM radio.

The earphones that come with MP3 players are the same quality if not better than came with Walkmans.

I recently pulled out my CD Walkman to listen to a CD and couldn't figure out how I listened to it ever as it sounded far worse than my iPod and iPhone.

Oh did I mention being able to carry your entire music library in the palm of your hand. Or previewing and buying new music without ever having to go to the store.

Etc....

To me the worst thing about MP3s is short attention span. I find myself jumping around a lot more picking songs rather then just listening all the way through.

Good for Dre Beats. Not really my style though. I got the Bose.

Am I an old fart?... 'twould appear that 32 is the new 79?... Back to ear buds bashing, perhaps inventing an arc system for ear buds could solve this distress? It could measure how fat people's ears are, the amount of wax and the approximate brain mass of the subject in relation to their total head mass and determine optimum slap back cancellation?...

Here is an old favorite photo, some might be old enough to recall.  It's a pic of a famous front man for a blues band from Dallas - circa 1963:
 
http://bizweb411.com/mikereidy/ruby-blues.bmp 
 
Too soon?
 
Bob Bone
 

You don't need to be 79 to sound like a crotchety old geezer. :) Cheap headphones are nothing new.  Nostalgia tends to wear rose colored glasses. I'm quite sure the combination of Beats by DR Dre , an mp3 and earbuds sound no worse than  my old Sony Walkman with those foam covered headphones.    The Sony Walkman was such a hit because it was a major jump for portable music.  Affordable options for music on the go prior to that consisted of cheap transistor radios.  In fact, I can't think of an error where portable music was anywhere even close to audiophile quality without spending an arm and a leg and being impractical.  I had a few friends who would spend several hundred on high end headphones for their discman, but most realized walking around with bulky, expensive headphones that could easily be damaged or lost was silly.  This thread makes it sound like the average consumer strapped reference monitors to their ears and toted around a cart with a high end audio system powered by a generator, playing 3/4" tape machines.  I seriously don't recall there ever being a widespread portable headphone that was significantly better than earbuds.  I'm hoping one day there will be, but like WDI, I think of portable music the same way as anything else portable; a step down but worth it for the convenience of being able to tote thousands of songs.