Increasing volume on a sound system rather than in the daw

[guitarplaya18]

I know this may be a stupid question, but here it goes.

Why is it that I can export my song unmastered and listen to it, and then turn up the volume on my system so that it sounds as loud as other songs, with out hearing any sort of clipping or compression that you get with mastering, but when i try and get the most volume out of it when mastering it does not sound as good?

basically, I can turn up a mix on my system and just have a louder great sounding mix

but trying to make it that loud in the daw results in clipping, not as good of result, etc?

you get what I'm trying to say?

 

[BLUElightCory]

That's the trade-off of limiting in the mastering stage, and also the #1 reason for the retardation of the "loudness wars" that have been going on for many years. Everyone wants the loudest songs on the radio/jukebox/internet/etc. and no one seems to care about how limiters destroy transients and dynamics. It's (sadly) just the way it is, and as long as musicians/labels/listeners want loud records (as opposed to just turning up the volume) that's how it's going to remain.