Like my unfinished charts and disorganized office.

Couldn't be the time I spend on the boards. Nah. Gotta be gremlins.

is the way they compress and limit the tracks now i guess is that they want everything loader for the radio i recently had some mastering classes and i guess the producer now a days want everything atleast 2 to 3 db higher

Yup, it's all for radio play. You can't be outdone by another cd as if it is louder than yours then it sounds better on the radio, supposedly. I guess people don't like turning up the volume.

I think that's the dynamic range of the CD format, but I'm not certain. As usual.

That's what I'd think, too, Ken. With all the technology available to us, you'd think we could improve on it.

It's actually a pretty big range, it's just that engineers are pushing up against it.

There is obviously a limit on those graphs were things start clipping. What sets that limit? Is it the dynamic range of the CD, or the original recording gear?

The limits on the graph (+1/-1) are the limits of the CD, but it's the fault of the mastering process, not the CD which has plenty of range to spare. The clipping could be in the recording; however, modern professional pop recordings won't have that problem (well, unless they do it on purpose for a "lo-fi" sound).

No, as Jim also pointed out, the dynamic range possible on CDs isn't the problem; the theoretical max range is about 98dB(6.02n + 1.76dB), and no recordings, even the most dynamic classical items, would exceed about 70dB(and even getting close to that leads to some bitter complaints about excessive dynamic range). The maximum level that digital recordings can achieve(termed 0 dBFS, for Full Scale)sets the limits on how high the recording level can be without clipping. Since louder sells in the pop arena, some recordings go up to and even beyond 0dBFS, resulting in the clipping that some of the charts show. But there's a difference between that and dynamic range; for example, it'd be theoretically possible to have a recording with zero dynamic range between the high and low points, but everything is recorded at higher than 0dBFS and is clipped.

A couple random memories which may be interesting in this discussion:

Many Zep fans claim the original cds from the 80s (or early 90s?) sound much better than even the most recent (remastered?) re-releases (2007). They (fans) claim it was because they (engineers) didn't use the original recordings in the most recent releases. But the louder is better for radio argument sounds more likely.

Also, back in the old LP days I read where Bob Ludwig (a famous mastering engineer or whatever they call it) said that groups would often want their sound louder - but he couldn't do that because the needle would jump right off the track of the record. I guess now they can do it.

Here is Boston- More than A Feeling, the remaster is on the bottom. Other than being louder it looks as though Tom prevented any clipping. Try as I might I could not identify any points that went flat.