But the sad part is that probably a lot of these bands mixed the songs with a ton of dynamics, and the labels forced the MEs to squash everything to hell. So the artist’s intentions, which should be the most important consideration, are superseded by what’s basically a pissing contest between MEs.

I wasn’t going to specifically mention the Waves L-series, but yes, this is one of the most common limiting tools, and also starts to sound pretty funky if used for more than 4-5db of gain reduction. Not that the L2 is a bad tool at all, but it simply cannot handle, on its own, the massive volume increase people are trying to reach these days. Unfortunately low-budget mastering facilities don’t know that and keep trying to use their L2 or L3 to push things louder and louder, and it just can’t handle that kind of abuse.