> There's two different arguments being conflated: > - Vinyl is higher fidelity (yourself, and the article). > - Vinyl sounds better. > Vinyl colors sound, i

> There's two different arguments being conflated: > - Vinyl is higher fidelity (yourself, and the article). > - Vinyl sounds better. > Vinyl colors sound, in the same way that some Vacuum Tubes color sound, which is a roundabout way of saying: They objectively make it less similar to the reference material than straight digital. But even though Vinyl is objectively worse at reproduction, some people prefer it (i.e. it subjectively sounds better to them). It's a little more complicated that that. The technical superiority of digital audio enables mastering techniques that can make the music sound worse: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war: > Modern recordings that use extreme dynamic range compression and other measures to increase loudness therefore can sacrifice sound quality to loudness. The competitive escalation of loudness has led music fans and members of the musical press to refer to the affected albums as "victims of the loudness war." Vinyl recording technology has technical limitations that make it far less suited to dynamic range compression (IIRC, something with groove spacing). I've read there have been some recent dual vinyl/digital releases where the vinyl version sounds objectively better because it was mastered for its medium and the digital version sounds shitty because it was mastered for loudness.