Mark, > You know, in all of my time spent messing with Pro Tools, and being > involved in the forums where a lot of us have shared our music for > critical comment, the only comment I've EVER heard about my mixes not > being loud enough is that people don't want to be bothered dealing with > the volume control on their system. So why doesn't the volume go to the average? Or why doesn't everybody turn their volumes DOWN instead of UP? You can't explain that by what you just said. Something else is going on. That something else tends to favor louder. Also, Ron Parker recently posted: "I have to admit the new loud master is better." Why is that? Now I myself have turned up my volumes considerably for exactly the reason you said: To match other volumes. But the explanation of why things tend up not down and not to an average MAY be a preference for more harmonics. Suppose someone turns up the volume for more harmonics. The rest of us come along and increase our volume to keep pace. The levels now are all the same. Someone turns up the volume again for more harmonics. The rest of use do the same, but merely to keep pace. And so on. We're part of the problem.