Don,

Great article. Thanks for linking it. I found this tidbit especially interesting:

"The phase rotator is a chain of allpass filters (typically four poles, all at 200Hz) whose group delay is very non-constant as a function of frequency. Many voice waveforms (particularly male voices) exhibit as much as 6dB asymmetry. The phase rotator makes voice waveforms more symmetrical and can sometimes reduce the peak-to-average ratio of voice by 3-4dB. Because this processing is linear (it adds no new frequencies to the spectrum, so it doesn’t sound raspy or fuzzy) it’s the closest thing to a “free lunch” that one gets in the world of transmission processing."

--Ethan

Great article. It strengthened what I already "heard" with my own ears and provided the science behind it. A great example is Norah Jones's album. Not too much squeezing going on in the mixing and mastering stages. The CD sounds great and is easy on the ears the whole CD through (something that is not common in these days of pop music). It also sounds good on the radio (a bit compressed but certainly not like the wall of noise that is most records on the radio. Great article!