Comment by ryandrake

This is an more interesting economic question than it might seem. The customers are asking for it, but the real question is "who is the customer?"

The sound designers and mixers' customers are not the audience, it's the producers that hired them. They're also not creating just one mix, but up to one audio stream per every device and playback environment. The people that actually does that work is not always going to be the same as the ones doing the theatrical mix(es) or on the same timeline, and may be using a lot of automation to do it, or not doing it all.

That indirection and the way that incentives get twisted can lead to really good or really bad content, but the quality of it isn't really indicative of how successful it's going to be financially.

Good example of this is Wicked. Somehow, a musical in which you can barely hear the music, is clearing $700 million in the global box office and is going to be an awards darling. I have some suspicions about how the theatrical mix turned out so bad that has a lot to do with the economics of film production, but the gist is that whether something the audience thinks is "good" has nothing to do with what the producers paying the sound folks ask for.

There are the mixers and then there are the people who run the theater; the latter could set the sound to a comfortable and safe level.

I know enough about sound engineering to wire up the board for a concert but I hardly ever do it because I think most events have the sound levels 10-20db higher than I find comfortable, anybody I work with will push the levels up when I turn my back. I think they're all deaf.

In late middle age I know I'm finally slipping because I don't find hiss from tapes as offensive as I did in my youth.