New vinyl that is the same as the loudness war CD, but people think sounds better

In the last 10-15 years of buying new titles on vinyl, I feel that only a few were clearly from a much less compressed source.

As for the others, pretty much all of them sounded less offensive on vinyl, but it was still obvious that there was a lot of compression overuse, either in the mixing or mastering and that the vinyl was just making things less offensive to my ears.

I got the feeling that even if the LP was cut from a 24 bit master, often the real damage had been done before dithering down to 16/44 for CD.

Like others, I've also experimented with transferring some compressed cds or digital files onto tape, and it did make them less fatiguing, much like the vinyl equivalent.

 

Well, I did struggle with the title. I apologize about the confusion. My post is rather long, so I may have diverged towards the end without realizing it.

I did provided an example myself.

I hesitate to provide quotes because, for me, that feels like I'm calling people out, which I have no intention on doing. As such, I am generalizing.

Someone did, rightfully, call me out on Death Magnetic. I do recall people stating the the vinyl should be avoided because it was expensive and no better than the CD.

However, I, also, recall those who have claimed that Rush's Vapor Trails, Feedback, and Clockwork Angels sound better on vinyl, although I don't know that for myself. Still, from what I have been able to glean from those posts, the vinyl still has a compressed sound, similar to, if not identical to, the CDs. I'm sure these posts can be found with a quick search.

It is possible that my whole idea for the thread is flawed. Just assume that if the CD is compressed or brickwalled, then the vinyl will sound that way, too. Therefore, we should simply seek out the threads that indicate which LPs are the exceptions.

 

But if that is a 96/24 digital source, the vinyl will sound better than the CD.

If the source is 44/16, the vinyl will be identical at best.

 

Black Sabbath -13

Metallica - Ride the Lightning (2017 remaster)

 

I have an example of record that sounds just a compressed as the digital files -- Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss. I think she's great, but after listening to this record I decided to just stick with her cds.

Generally, Bob Weston cuts very dynamic vinyl records from digital sources.

 

Certainly true when it comes to Everything Now. I love the vinyl artwork, but the music sounds just as fatiguing as a compressed CD.

 

While peoples ears will tell them whatever they want to believe - I do not think it is possible to have a "loudness war CD" master - transferred to to vinyl and have it sound better.

For me - here in 2018 - unless a vinyl record is 100% verified to come from an all analog source chain aka "AAA" (like the Beatles mono box - my last real worthy vinyl purchase) - I do not see the point to purchasing any new vinyl.

Record companies will take the shortest possible line from spending money (making the actual master) to making the most money they can (using that master to create as many possible physical "things" to sell).

Can't justify spending 40 on a fancy (digitally sourced) vinyl package when the same master sells for half that on CD or download.

VP

 

I should have said "less offensive" rather than less compressed.
Sometimes the vinyl just seemed to take away some of the harshness, but sometimes I felt that that the vinyl sounded mushy. That could be down to the way it was cut though.

 

You’re saying you don’t think the vinyl version of this title sounds any better than the CD version?

 

I think it's more of a case of the vinyl taking away some of the harshness, which the listener conceives as sounding better.
In reality, it's probably more a case of it sounding less crappy.

 

Correct. I hear nothing other than the more pleasant sound the vinyl format/playback provides. I hear the distortion in the same places.

 

There is a 2013 release, I think from Friday Music, that apparently sounds nice. I own an original Columbia cd pressing which sounds decent.....oh well, I should have done my homework.

 

I agree with most of this.

I'm not 100% on the AAA thing. I have some digitally-sourced vinyl that sounds quite good. Many LPs from the 80's were recorded digitally. Some reissues sound good, but came from digital sources.

Now, if a find out that they vinyl is AAA from the original masters, all the better.

But, yeah, if CD and the vinyl come from the same digital source, but the vinyl costs three times as much, I can't really justify that to myself.

 

I think that's exactly what is going on in a lot of cases. Moves made during cutting, the softening of the sound, the coloring of the playback. This can certainly help a harsh, loud digital mastering. Recording out to tape or even just recapturing to digital from a very warm DAC can help. It's rounding the edges.

 

Here are some waveforms from the CD and vinyl of Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference that OP is talking about.



CD has limiting that vinyl doesn't have indicating that they are from a different master. I have no idea what equipment was used to rip the vinyl as it's not my needledrop.

Nevertheless both sound bad. Vinyl has more dynamics but you can't really hear it because both are heavily distorted. It's just very poorly recorded and produced album.

 

@Stone Turntable makes a good point about the confusion, but I still think this is a very good topic, and probably an overdue one - thanks @dlokazip !

I think the above-quoted comments get to the heart of the matter: Vinyl often sounds different for the same basic reason dlokazip, @kwf , and many others occasionally hear a lossy digital version that seems to sound slightly better than the CD. I've lost track of the number of times I've been on various forums where someone has linked to a YouTube video of an album and said something like, "This version sounds amazing, does anyone know which issue/reissue/mastering this is from?" Of course the YT version never is a unique or new mastering. It's one of the established ones that's been run through YouTube's 124kbps AAC compression - and to at least some people's ears, that compression has produced some kind of euophonic effect, a pleasant but ultimately inaccurate modification of the original file.

Vinyl, magnetic tape, and digital lossy compression are of course very different, but they all randomize the peak levels of a digitally limited, buzzcut original digital master file.

This is why mp3 albums in the DR database almost always have at least one or two tracks that show up as 1dB higher on the DR meter than the original CD. In fact, rips of redbook CDs that were made from high-res digital masters sometimes will show the same thing: One or more tracks on the CD sometimes will rate 1dB higher on the DR scale than the equivalent tracks on the HDTracks high-res version of the exact same mastering of the same album.

Analogue media of course change the sound more than lossy digital compression does, which in turn changes the sound more than lossless downsampling (like from 24/96 to 16/44.1). And vinyl in particular has such a complex chain of mechanical and electrical components that you get lots of small euphonic distortions: vibration, highly variable frequency-dependent channel crosstalk, different cartridge electronics, different sounding phono preamps, various impedance interactions between cartridge and phono preamp - the list is almost endless.

But any alteration of the original high-res digital file (since we're talking about digital masters in this thread) will change the sonics at least slightly. And with buzzcut, compressed masters, that alteration always slightly softens the uniformity of the limited peaks - a tiny bit with High-res to CD conversion, moreso with lossy conversion, and even moreso with recording to analogue media including vinyl.

Now, I don't know that many people here would dispute this. But I think this thread is important because it seems to me that quite a lot of people here, while agreeing with this, are quite resistant to acknowledging the main implications of it, namely:

1. A vinyl LP cut from a high-res digital master is not necessarily going to sound any different or better than an LP cut from a redbook digital master
2. Every LP sounds different than the equivalent CD, but if the LP is not truly from a separate master, the sonic difference largely is euphonic - the LP's better sound (when it does sound better) is from distortions and limitations of the vinyl medium. Even Michael Fremer has said that maybe it is euphonic but he doesn't care - whatever it is, he just likes it. And that's fine.

 

So what the OP asks: are CDs and Vinyl that are in reality exactly the same source and output and mix and mastering, mistakenly preferred as better audio by someone who happens to merely prefer one or the other playing format....so will they think their preference is actually superior when it isn't...right?

 

Could come into play both on what is transferred and then in what is transmitted via the final means of conveyance.

 

That's the kind of thing some people would say – – Ron Nasty

 

Interesting. I think you’re the first person I’ve run across with that opinion.
It’s pretty easy to hear (and see) the significant difference in dynamic range between the two versions IMO. The vinyl was cut by Chris Bellman, the CD by Stephen Marcussen. There’s a good 5 dB of difference in the amount of compression between the two.

These threads are full of people who made the same comparison.


Black Sabbath - "13"*

Black Sabbath - "13" (part 2)

 

There was a video link on here recently which had an engineer showing the difference between the CD and Vinyl which he had cut from the same master.
It showed that DR numbers for vinyl increased when cutting to vinyl, even though the same source was used and proved that you couldn't really trust the DR numbers.
That aside, it did show how the vinyl made the music seem more dynamic and altered the sound.

Does anyone have that link as I think it would be interesting to some here who didn't see it before.

 

Basically, yes. However, understand that I am not referring to a placebo effect. There are differences in sound between vinyl and CD. I believe that a person who genuinely prefers the sound of vinyl would be able to choose that recording in a blind test, even if both the CD and vinyl came from the same source. However, the "better sound" argument is subjective and debatable.

I stated in the original post that there are people with confirmation bias. They hold that big record jacket in their hands while listening and convince themselves that it sounds better. I do not get the impression that most of the members of this forum are like that.

 

It's fine as long as you don't make a holy crusade out of your preferences, denying technical facts and bullying those who might not share the sentiment.

I have no idea why my previous post was deleted. Yes, I believe vinyl to be lie, which doesn't mean people can't like it more than other formats. It's their ears, but it's a lie when people claim it's superior in technical ways.

 

Is the DR database really accurate for vinyl?

Very interesting

 

Damn! I need to proofread better.

"Now, if I find out that the vinyl is AAA from the original masters, all the better."