Perfecting Sound Forever - The story of recorded music by Greg Milner
This 416 page paperback, published 2009 by Granta Publications, London appears to be the best contemporary explanation of how recorded music evolved in the last 50 years. Book does not hold back on presenting views that may offend many in the Audio Engineering industry. Despite the best intentions, it infers greed was the primary driver of evolution and created a long-term decline in quality. Has many fascinating insights to the creation of new products and issues like remastering, loudness levels, optimal S/N, single microphone vs multi-track, etc. The book ends about 2008.