I've been there and doing a lot of reading on the matter. My conclusion is its not the media medium, its the way the music is finished for the particular medium or the mastering for the medium. We would be miles ahead if the industry just used the vinyl masters for CD's instead of trying to reinvent the whole thing.
FWIW I know I've posted to the point of ad nausea about ripping vinyl but just to offer a taste of the results and how its about the mastering versus the medium here's two downloadable 16/44.1 rips to listen to. 1st British pressings of both albums, DSOTM and Disraeli Gears Nothing done to them other than the vinyl cleaned really well and the clicks manually removed versus using a program to do the chore. Not that there were that many after cleaning. Vinyl is worth the hassle because the results are awesome if everything is right.
2¢
mastering vs. format is probably a legitimate argument. I've come around to believing most of the Hi Res digital files sound better not because of the resolution, but the different mastering. And there were mastering issues with a lot of vinyl as well. So, for the $, I've found a well mastered cd will sound better than vinyl...using similarly priced equipment. I use both depending on my mood (or location, as the vinyl is in the basement)...most of the time, I find a good CD sounds better, and a good digital file via my laptop, perhaps better.
Bumping this 2012 post of Dave's as I recently came a mention of the site on another discussion forum.
Worth checking out.
I've been there and doing a lot of reading on the matter. My conclusion is its not the media medium, its the way the music is finished for the particular medium or the mastering for the medium. We would be miles ahead if the industry just used the vinyl masters for CD's instead of trying to reinvent the whole thing.
FWIW I know I've posted to the point of ad nausea about ripping vinyl but just to offer a taste of the results and how its about the mastering versus the medium here's two downloadable 16/44.1 rips to listen to. 1st British pressings of both albums, DSOTM and Disraeli Gears Nothing done to them other than the vinyl cleaned really well and the clicks manually removed versus using a program to do the chore. Not that there were that many after cleaning. Vinyl is worth the hassle because the results are awesome if everything is right.
I remember when I got my first cd player and loaded up the disc, hit play and stood back to get the full range of sound from my JBL L-100 Century speakers and the first words out of my mouth was, "this sounds like sh*t!!!!"
I remember the other way around. Was normally listening to CD's and then my grandfather showed me his LP collection. Maybe the dynamic range was top notch. I don't know. But I only remember the problems with the player, dirt and scratches on the LP and the fact that you had to turn them every 15 minutes or so.
Its amazing that with only a few exceptions the vinyl listings have the highest dynamic range on average, Many even have 20 the max while almost no CD's have a range of 20.
And the consistently worst vinyl dynamic ranges are the group "Feeder"
I remember when I got my first cd player and loaded up the disc, hit play and stood back to get the full range of sound from my JBL L-100 Century speakers and the first words out of my mouth was, "this sounds like sh*t!!!!"
Location: No longer in a hovel in effluent Damnville, VA Gender:
Posted:
May 23, 2016 - 7:45am
Beaker wrote:
Bumping this 2012 post of Dave's as I recently came a mention of the site on another discussion forum.
Worth checking out.
Its amazing that with only a few exceptions the vinyl listings have the highest dynamic range on average, Many even have 20 the max while almost no CD's have a range of 20.
And the consistently worst vinyl dynamic ranges are the group "Feeder"
Interesting and sadly not surprising. Makes me happier to know that most of my CD's are ancient, before they started to re engineer the sound. So much for ripping music from Youtube anymore ...
Great website btw. Good info for doing my own stuff and it confirmed a lot of what I have been doing. Thanks hippie, ya old fart ! Bookmarked it for future reference.
Location: No longer in a hovel in effluent Damnville, VA Gender:
Posted:
Aug 1, 2012 - 7:24am
Here is a nice database that lists many albums dynamic ranges for those of you like me that don't like buying music with all the life squeezed out of it:
