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

I recently bought the vinyl of Epica's 2009 release Design Your Universe at a concert because I am a huge collector and fan. This is symphonic metal and is typically pretty compressed, with the DR for the CD showing 6 / 4 / 11 (total/min/max) and all songs are peaked to -0.10 db. I needledropped the vinyl and was surprised to see much more variance between the song peaks and the DR of my needledrop was 10 / 9 / 11. The song with 11 was the same on needledrop and I mention this because frequently you will see on the DR database that a vinyl release of a modern album will have +4 for total/min/max across the board over the CD but not really sound any different (I would put Metallica's Death Magnetic and Rush's Clockwork Angels in this category). Yet this sounded much better and with the same max. Another Nuclear Blast release (Eluveitie's Origins) had a CD of 7/5/12 but a vinyl release of 14/9/15 and it is very noticeable how much better it is.

So I guess what I'm saying is that the record company might have a lot to do with it and maybe smaller companies do a better job, strangely enough. I would not completely discount new vinyl for all purchases but it frequently isn't noticeably better either. That's what this forum is for!

 

When you say 5db of difference, are you going by the DR ratings? Because DR rating isn't accurate for CD vs vinyl. Very brick walled recordings can gain quite a bit by being pressed to vinyl. I'd need to compare waveforms to see if there really is that kind of difference in compression. Digital audio which loses DR due to limiting can gain that back (to varying degrees) with an analog conversion. As far as hearing a difference, I think the vinyl format and moves Chris could make could possibly account for a more dynamic sound on the vinyl. Which could mean that the vinyl does sound better. But my point was more that I don't believe a less heavily mastered source was used for the vinyl after comparing them. They both sounded really smashed, with distortion and the vinyl just seemed to be able to soften it up and lessen the smashing over the head feeling the CD gives.

The cutting and mastering are two different things. Chris did the cutting but would've used a digital file with mastering already applied by someone else.

If I have some time, I'll read through those threads. But honestly, this album doesn't interest me much anymore and the handful of bonus tracks didn't make it to vinyl anyway.

 

Now you’re saying it

 

I have several loudness war-era LP's that are massive improvements. KT Tunstall's KIN is one of my more recent favorites in this area.

 

No...I know the DR plug in wasn’t designed for vinyl, although people digitize vinyl in and measure it anyway. I guess it might be useful to measure various vinyl pressings against each other, but comparing CD’s vs vinyl is really an apples and oranges thing. I’m really going by what I hear, and what I saw on the waveforms I had here (long since gone).
Neither one would ever be confused for a Steely Dan record, but what they did to that CD was an abomination. The vinyl was a blessing compared to that mess. And I don’t really say that unless I hear it. The last Bowie box, the latest Queen releases, the Roxy Music box set...all were terrible because of overuse of limiting. Just awful. This is strictly my opinion folks. If you enjoy these vinyl boxsets, that’s great for you. No offense intended.

 

This rarely gets mentioned, but it is also my strong impression that many audiophiles have put a lot more time and money into getting their analogue rigs to sound good. If you've got (i) a $2000 turntable with a carfully calibrated cartridge/tonearm; and (ii) a $199 DVD player that you use to play CD's connected to your amp via analogue outs, my guess is that on your system, the vinyl version of virtually every album ever released is going to sound better than the CD version.

 

You can get different DR numbers on vinyl from using different cartridges. I got lower DR numbers needle dropping from a Shure M44G than from a AT95E.

So, it's a moot point. DR numbers on vinyl are useless.

 

This. I have a few different cartridges and none of them have the same output.

Preamp output isn't the same either. Not to mention whatever levels were set at on the ADC or the recording software. That's before we get to the effect any post-processing (normalization, declicking, limiting, compressing, etc. ) might have on DR.

I ignore all vinyl DR scores on the DR site.

 

Sure, obviously if you change something in the chain it will affect the recording that you’ve made.
But, if you are staying consistent, you can look at one pressing compared to another, just for a frame of reference.

 

They arent a divining rod, but they are far from useless. I use them all the time to help me decide whether to make a purchase. If someone says that the new vinyl release of the White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan “kicks butt”, I might not make the purchase. If someone says it sounds less compressed, and more open than the 2005 CD, I’m curious. If that person’s profile indicates he’s not listening on his phone, then I’m even more interested. If I then check the DR numbers and the new vinyl is 13 whereas the original CD was 5, then taking everything into account, I may take a chance.

 

As much as I love vinyl, I agree with this all the way. I'll spring for the vinyl copy if the CD is too loud or compressed.

Sometimes it works out, other times not, but for new releases, the CD is my first purchase.

 

Your Design Your Universe may be a recent remaster and may sound different from the cd. My Phantom Agony and Consign to Oblivion LP's are nothing like the cd's, and are very dynamic. However, from memory, their last two LP's - not the EP - sound only marginally better than the cd's.

 

They can be remarkably close or drastically different. For shi$t's and giggles I sometimes compare the ones I did to those posted. I find zero value in them, but it's fun at times.
Album details - Dynamic Range Database

log date: 2018-03-09 21:24:46

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Van Halen / 1984
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR12 -3.93 dB -19.80 dB 1:07 01-1984
DR12 -1.52 dB -16.96 dB 4:05 02-Jump
DR13 -1.72 dB -16.40 dB 3:32 03-Panama
DR13 -1.14 dB -17.23 dB 3:01 04-Top Jimmy
DR13 -0.98 dB -16.41 dB 4:14 05-Drop Dead Legs
DR13 -1.81 dB -17.23 dB 4:43 06-Hot For Teacher
DR13 -1.73 dB -17.19 dB 4:42 07-I'll Wait
DR13 -0.20 dB -16.61 dB 4:34 08-Girl Gone Bad
DR12 -1.32 dB -15.66 dB 3:20 09-House Of Pain
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of tracks: 9
Official DR value: DR13

 

I think the term, from the same digital source, has to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, the cd and vinyl versions of the Beatles stereo remasters were from the same digital source, but the limiter was removed for the vinyl versions. While the limiting for the cd's were at a minimal, there is still a very noticeable difference. For some other recordings, the differences can even be bigger.

 

I’m not sure I’m following you here...why would someone digitize in their vinyl, apply limiting/compression, and then post the score on the DR database?

 

I didn’t notice the very noticeable difference between the limited and not limited Beatles 24-bit files and Abbey Road and Let It Be stereo vinyl, I expect that’s because we’re talking about 0.5-1.5dB difference and in music playback (not a sine wave) that’s going to be very hard to discern...unlike an 8dB difference like the Dream Theater 2013 record.

 

Yup, I have that one. Another example of a recent vinyl that sounds better than the cd.

 

Thank you for showing this. He goes very much into detail, but I'm baffled by his choice of example. He chose a very loud and distorted section of a song, I can barely discern anything. To me it's all "loud loud loud". Why not choose a quiet section, or better yet a transition from quiet to loud.

 

Nothing can reproduce square waves. They are only a theoretical concept, in the real world they're physically impossible.

"Digital nasties" is a meaningless term, there isn't anything wrong with digital or the CD format.

Rather, vinyl introduces euphonic distortions, i.e. it adds harmonics not present in the original, and it EQs a bit, both of which sounds pleasing to many people. Basically you're using the record as a sound processor to tune the audio more to your liking. An equalizer and a DSP with a specific setting would achieve the same thing.

 

That would be a shame and a good example of baby going out with the bathwater.

The figures are not absolutely precise, not even for CDs, but they don't need to be. They remain a good indicator and very far from 'useless'. I agree that a couple of db difference - that remains consistent across each track - should be viewed with care, but no way can gross differences be ignored.

As such, it's a useful indicator that the vinyl is likely a different beast. I've come across many where I know for sure they are the same source and the DR figures for the CD version and vinyl are virtually identical. Conversely, I done the same with many that I know have been recently reissued with much less DR and guess what? That is also reflected in the figures.

I think this whole 'DR is useless for vinyl' thing has been exaggerated in the way you often find when a couple of techies identify some small differences with some examples and then rush to rubbish a concept or in this case a perfectly useful, if not precise, tool.

 

I agree about their last two LPs being very similar to the CDs, I should have mentioned that. Design Your Universe and The Divine Conspiracy were re-released last year on vinyl after being very hard to get since their original release and I don't know if they were remastered. It really is a crapshoot but I think I might take a chance on The Divine Conspiracy vinyl now.

 

Additionally we can determine with 100% certainty that it has a totally different mastering and can be accurately measured with the DR meter, because we have that totally different mastering available digitally as the 24-bit stereo HD download. Such a huge difference, although I personally most often defer to the excellent 5.1 mix the 24-bit stereo version offers a substantially more pleasant listening experience which no doubt is what the vinyl is cut from.

Very peculiar that the DVD-Audio version contains the same nasty mastering for the 24-bit stereo cut as the CD does, it's only via HD download sites that you can get the superior stereo mastering digitally.

My bad, I said 8dB as I thought it was 5>13 but it's 6>12, a perceived doubling in dynamics.

 

The figures for CDs ARE absolutely precise, you cannot get different values for a CD measure no matter how many times you rip the CD on many different PCs with different drives, meanwhile I've seen several different results for the same album (Metallica 2017)

It's pretty much useless, I know of albums where the DR rip shows greater than a few dB's difference where I know with 100% certainty that the cutting files were identical. It's rare that we will get this info as it's usually not revealed, but DMB's Away from the World (2012) was cut from the CD-DA files by Ray Janos at Sterling, it's one mastering and yet the vinyl rip shows a difference of 4 dBs.

I wish they would at least add a toggle to hide the vinyl entries.

 

It's not uncommon for people to run a variety of plug-ins/effects after "ripping" vinyl. One of my friends does it with his needledrops of albums and DJ mixes, though he doesn't use the DR database.

Even if the majority of people uploading needledrops do zero post-processing, my earlier points about cartridge, preamp, and level differences still stand.

 

This. While they are at it they should give an option to filter out lossy formats as well.