The ability to zone in on minute transients is the time equivalent of discerning small difference frequencies. It’s not something you learn overnight. I sure as heck didn’t.
I revently noticed, that I could hear subtle compression and changes to the groove and feel. Took me only 15 years^^ 
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Another couple of videos:
This one uses drums, but mostly one snare so it makes you listen to the transient vs the tail:
It also mentions SoundGym, who have exercises to train your ears (I haven’t tried it).
This next video shows examples of guitar and vocals:
It’s obviously much easier to hear it on single instruments, so sorry if these two videos are too simplistic.
Produce Like A Pro channel on YouTube has a few compression videos. One in particular showed how he uses the famous SSL compressor on the master bus. It was still subtle, but I could hear the difference there (if I remember correctly 
). Either way, it was a decent watch to see how he approaches it (very subtle).
Edit: I’m with you BTW - I’ve watched a number of those videos with subtle mixbus compression, where I can’t hear the difference. I’m still learning, so maybe one day.
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I feel that it depends very much on what you’ve been trained to hear. Some can play a melody and chord progressions right after one listening but might not give importance to dynamics or colors. Others might be more interested in colors and dynamics while being ignorant of pitches. So, it’s practicing to hear music in a different way. FYI, I have the same problem with you - subtle compression is tough for me. Thanks for some good videos in this thread! 
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Another couple of good videos:
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If you’re making music in an untreated room, it might be a good idea to get a pair of nice headphone, I guess? Especially subtle things can easily get lost if the monitoring situation isn’t good.
Headphones take the room out of the equation and you might find it easier to pick up on these things.
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I do think if you’re putting compression across a whole mix it is much more subtle.
Is probably the simplest answer to that. If it isn’t subtle, you can really, really hear it and not usually in a good way.
Compressions is not always necessary! I found, specially when the soundmaterial and the levels are somehow in a good relationship, then a compressor is more a cherry on top of the ice cream.
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This is an interesting way to frame it. I wonder how far we can take the frequency : dynamics analogy?
I mean, all of western music is based on collectively coming to the decision that being slightly out of tune with natural intervals just doesn’t matter much. Most digital synths have a parameter to intentionally and randomly detune oscillators from their perfect frequencies. In the frequency domain, we crave alignment on the macro-level, but on the micro-level we run from it.
Is the same true of dynamics? Evening out a performance or getting a balanced mix on your board is surely a good thing. But is dialing in the occasional fraction-of-a-DB cut off the top of the 2bus to make it sound like it was recorded in the same room an obsessive pursuit of perfection akin to microtonality?
A lot of the examples of mix- or mastering-compression I’ve seen say “this is really subtle, but you’ll miss it when it’s gone.” But I don’t, yet. And maybe that’s not something I need to fix?
Loving all the fantastic, helpful comments in this thread!
Here’s a method that will help you learn to hear compression. I cannot watch the videos posted here right now but if what I’m about to write here was already mentioned there, please accept my apologies.
In order to learn to hear compression, what had helped me the most is to put a compressor either on an instrument or a bus, and really push it to the limit (super low threshold, high ratio) and mess with the time parameters. This way you know what it does at different settings, how the compression sounds, and then you back it down to subtle settings, and since you already know what it sounds like, you look for that same sound in a more subtle way, and I tell you, you can hear it. Just need to know what to hear before you can hear it. Makes sense? It takes practice but get used to pushing the compressor at first and dialing it down every time you use a compressor and you’ll see improvement.
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That’s also a very good video about how compressors work. 
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Nice! Void also has some great threads on mastering and bus compression, specifically over on Subsekt.
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I want to applaud the overwhelming majority of responders in this thread for being open and welcoming to the vulnerable question proposed. Another mark in the positivity column for this forum. Also… props to the OP for not giving a &*(#, and admitting they don’t know a thing that seems so common among producers.
Cheers, y’all.
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It’s actually a very well established relationship and a bunch of iffy physics around it, like the Fourier transform. There’s also this Heisenbergy phenomenon where you can’t maintain perfect control over both, doing a drastic frequency change will result in phase distortion… because EQing IS phase distortion.
I think the idea of tuning is a macro level thing, the result in frequency when you do imperfect tuning is a richness and that’s something a lot of people like. But we don’t like resonant spikes, nasal sounds, mud, etc. These are technically small details in a very large spectrum. What point there is to having your way with a couple dozens of milliseconds of music at a time is beyond me, except it’s fun. What’s the difference between a $6 and a $60 wine? But people tend to -feel- these things they don’t hear, much like superhigh frequencies tell us about spatial placement. Maybe we’re kidding ourselves, but I love the experience of a good compressor on my mix. Vintage compression has moved me at an emotional level at times.
Compress or don’t compress, it’s up to you. Let it be forgotten a while if it doesn’t make a lot of sense at the time.
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Vintage compression? What can I imagine under vintage? La2? Fairchild? All the optical and varimu stuff?
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That last sentence is sage-y
I have shit ears on shit monitors and I don’t hear subtle mastering things like compression or light EQs.
I’m sure it’s good but a bad track will always sound bad even with a 4K$ compressor. At the opposite I love to listen some youtube compressed jams direct recorded on portable recorder without mastering.
Underground hiphop or early Mr. Oizo tracks are also very not polished and sound so good.
So my conclusion, if it sound good to your ears even without compression, then it’s good enough.
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Oh yes, all that stuff! but varimu is kind of esoteric. There’s a ton of cool more, uh, pedestrian units out there.
When I use the bus comp on the SSLsix the effect is obvious and amazing. I recorded a short video and uploaded to YouTube, but how the recording sounded in the YouTube un-compressed compared to YouTube compression version was hardly different at all.
If you can’t hear any difference on YouTube don’t think it’s you that’s broken.
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totally forgot about Kotelnikov, it’s amazing. they should team up with elektron lol
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