"recent stuff" is somewhat relative. the loudness war has been fought on other fronts than just CDs/mp3s. my cassette player from the 80s had a loudness button. the sales rep at Guitar Center bragged about the easiest one-button sale for a 1RU piece of gear to add to your rack that made your sound better. it was just a loudness on/off button. so it was playback device dependent at that time which allowed the listener to choose it. they just moved the battle field to format itself and took away the choice