What are some techno/trance radio stations?

Why do radio stations still heavily compress music?

• Most music produced today is "radio ready" or is a victim of the loudness wars. So why do radio stations still compress songs as much as they did back when songs had some dynamic range to begin with? I find most radio unbearable these days because all the clipping and distortion found on modern recordings is exaggarated by all the processing the radio stations apply. To be clear, I know the original intentions begins applying compression and limiting to radio. But why aren't radio engineers changing their settings to match current music trends? Surely giving listeners headaches doesn't get the stations more business.

• Answer:

  First, thankfully most radio stations don't just play music produced today! Partially, the audio processing that a station applies to its on-air sound is part of "its" sound; a characteristic sound that only FM radio can provide. Because radio is a "multi-tasking" medium, so you can do other things while you listen, you're unlikely to be in a quiet room with perfect acoustics; and radio may need to cut through the other noise. Radio has, also, more than just music: there's talk and other portions of output. Where audio processing really helps is overlaps between different types of output - two songs, a jingle and a spoken presenter, for example. Finally, audio processing isn't one size fits all. Listeners in the UK to the BBC's output online will hear considerably less audio processing than on FM: since a listener online is less likely to be driving or decorating, and much more likely to be listening over headphones or in a quiet office environment. The same goes for listening over the TV networks.