- It should sound good on the largest possible number of different monitoring setups
- The listener should never feel the need to adjust loudness, tone, or EQ controls
- The same goes for random play mode
- The recording medium should be free from artefacts (glitches, distortion, overs, etc.)
- Using solid technical background knowledge, the material should be treated in such a way that it never deteriorates in quality and maintains the greatest possible acoustic depth.
- The recorded medium should not be mastered so loud that it is felt to be intrusive or over-compressed.
- Loudness should only be increased when – through same-dynamic A/B comparison – the track sounds as good as or better than the version without loudness processing.
(Excerpt from Audio Mastering with PC Workstations)
