Haha, I laughed when I saw this thread, cause it's something I've always asked myself!
To me, the beauty about music is that sometimes sounds just speak for themselves, and no matter how hard you try, some of us will never get a satisfying explanation in plain english. Though there's been some great explanations on this thread, none of them can compare to listening to a mix BEFORE and AFTER a properly used expander.
The funny thing is, as confused as we may get, the real explanation of alot of these effects are closer to their name then we give them credit for
A.o.
