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Frank Zappa also was releasing recordings in the age prior to the Loudness War. Digital is a superior format. But I still buy vinyl because a good half of viny

Frank Zappa also was releasing recordings in the age prior to the Loudness War. Digital is a superior format. But I still buy vinyl because a good half of vinyl recordings out there aren't completely fucked by applying a compressor that destroys the dynamic range.

some-guy 9y ago
I confess: I used to get Vinyl rips of old albums for this reason on what.cd It wasn't that Vinyl is better, but the MIXES were better. They didn't compress the crap out of everything.
- kazinator 9y ago
  If a modern, loudness-compressed digital mix is rendered into vinyl, it will have the same property. I think that before digital, recording engineers treated the headroom as that: headroom: it was there to "have" not to abuse all the time. With analog, you don't exactly know where the red line is, either. Plus there is the effect of a gradual onset of distortion which is interpreted by the ear as loudness. With digital, you can level the loudness with an algorithm to use the full headroom. It can be done with analog tools, too, but digital ones are just more "surgically precise"; the algorithm can look at the track globally, not just with an infinite impulse response circuit that whose output is only based on its prior input, and which cannot anticipate transients.
kazinator 9y ago
Vinyl recordings are absolutely degraded by a compressor; it's necessary to reduce the dynamics so that the record can be cut, and so the needle doesn't skip out on playback. Something has to make the material fit into the limited dynamic range. There is also pre and post equalization applied: Wikipedia info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization The bass has the shit rolled down out of it, and is boosted back on playback. If you image search for "RIAA circuit", you get lots of hits for phonograph cartridge pre-amp circuits that implement the playback EQ. By the way, another Zappa article, on this topic, about record cutting! http://www.afka.net/Articles/1980-01_Musicians_Only.htm http://www.afka.net/Articles/1980-01_Musicians_Only.htm > The album was cut at half speed, a lengthier process, obviously, but resulting in far better definition and dynamics. At normal speed, deep flanging like that used on JOE'S GARAGE can play havoc with the record cutting head. When the two sides of the stereo are out of phase, the groove almost vanishes and your stylus will leap clear and scythe a path across the rest of the vinyl. One of the advances he's looking forward to is the improvement in cutting techniques so the head's relationship to the disc can be updated many more times during a cut, boosting the fidelity. Good grief ... the vinyl issues! Flanging was used and the head skips due to the channels being out of phase, gotta cut at half speed.
- cthalupa 9y ago
  Degraded, yes. But as you mentioned, the RIAA curve gets applied back by your phono preamp, which takes care of a lot of the issue. Modern digital recordings are often ran through a compressor to the point where there's zero headroom left. Hell, there are albums where things outright clip even on the lossless version on the CD. Plenty of others have so little wiggle room that you'll see clipping on any compressed format. Certainly, there are plenty of albums out there that use the same shitty masters as the CD. But plenty of others don't. One of my favorite albums from the past few years, The Flesh Prevails by Fallujah, for example, has a completely different master for the vinyl. The dynamic range is great. The CD master, to me, has several songs that are nearly un-listenable due to the mastering on the CD. I'd love if I could just pay for the good master in a digital format. But as someone who is primarily a metalhead, masters are shitty far too often. So I have to wait to find out if the vinyl releases are better, and then buy and then rip them if so. Then spend 5 or 6 hours per side manually removing crackles and pops and other noises... I don't like it. But it is what it is!

some-guy 9y ago

I confess: I used to get Vinyl rips of old albums for this reason on what.cd It wasn't that Vinyl is better, but the MIXES were better. They didn't compress the crap out of everything.

kazinator 9y ago
If a modern, loudness-compressed digital mix is rendered into vinyl, it will have the same property. I think that before digital, recording engineers treated the headroom as that: headroom: it was there to "have" not to abuse all the time. With analog, you don't exactly know where the red line is, either. Plus there is the effect of a gradual onset of distortion which is interpreted by the ear as loudness. With digital, you can level the loudness with an algorithm to use the full headroom. It can be done with analog tools, too, but digital ones are just more "surgically precise"; the algorithm can look at the track globally, not just with an infinite impulse response circuit that whose output is only based on its prior input, and which cannot anticipate transients.

kazinator 9y ago

Vinyl recordings are absolutely degraded by a compressor; it's necessary to reduce the dynamics so that the record can be cut, and so the needle doesn't skip out on playback. Something has to make the material fit into the limited dynamic range. There is also pre and post equalization applied: Wikipedia info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization The bass has the shit rolled down out of it, and is boosted back on playback. If you image search for "RIAA circuit", you get lots of hits for phonograph cartridge pre-amp circuits that implement the playback EQ. By the way, another Zappa article, on this topic, about record cutting! http://www.afka.net/Articles/1980-01_Musicians_Only.htm http://www.afka.net/Articles/1980-01_Musicians_Only.htm > The album was cut at half speed, a lengthier process, obviously, but resulting in far better definition and dynamics. At normal speed, deep flanging like that used on JOE'S GARAGE can play havoc with the record cutting head. When the two sides of the stereo are out of phase, the groove almost vanishes and your stylus will leap clear and scythe a path across the rest of the vinyl. One of the advances he's looking forward to is the improvement in cutting techniques so the head's relationship to the disc can be updated many more times during a cut, boosting the fidelity. Good grief ... the vinyl issues! Flanging was used and the head skips due to the channels being out of phase, gotta cut at half speed.

cthalupa 9y ago
Degraded, yes. But as you mentioned, the RIAA curve gets applied back by your phono preamp, which takes care of a lot of the issue. Modern digital recordings are often ran through a compressor to the point where there's zero headroom left. Hell, there are albums where things outright clip even on the lossless version on the CD. Plenty of others have so little wiggle room that you'll see clipping on any compressed format. Certainly, there are plenty of albums out there that use the same shitty masters as the CD. But plenty of others don't. One of my favorite albums from the past few years, The Flesh Prevails by Fallujah, for example, has a completely different master for the vinyl. The dynamic range is great. The CD master, to me, has several songs that are nearly un-listenable due to the mastering on the CD. I'd love if I could just pay for the good master in a digital format. But as someone who is primarily a metalhead, masters are shitty far too often. So I have to wait to find out if the vinyl releases are better, and then buy and then rip them if so. Then spend 5 or 6 hours per side manually removing crackles and pops and other noises... I don't like it. But it is what it is!