There is so much power in perceived volume, that objectively worse recordings/mixes will sound "better" if they are louder. It's why mainstream albums are *still* mixed for loudness instead of clarity. Mixing and mastering engineers on the internet will tell you to use clipping to trim off the transients so the compressors/limiters don't have to work as hard to smash the audio to the maximum loudness. We have the technology for really amazing sounding albums, but we instead get garbage. #audio