4 ms·

I'd say the reasoning is adjacent but not the same. There will always inherently be some harmonic distortion when playing a record, and that sounds pleasing to

I'd say the reasoning is adjacent but not the same. There will always inherently be some harmonic distortion when playing a record, and that sounds pleasing to the ears in a lot of cases. But the main reason records usually sound better is simply dynamic range. I'm a huge fan of 80s club music (Paradise Garage type stuff). I've spent a lot of time and money over the years ripping those original records, because unfortunately the digital releases of a lot of those songs were brickwall limited, which ruins the dynamics and punchiness of the drums and other elements of the music. I'm sure the same applies to other genres.

musicale 4y ago
CDs can support 90+dB of dynamic range, which is pretty great, with much less distortion and noise. A good classical recording can show this off pretty well. On the other hand, 80s club music was presumably mixed and mastered with vinyl-style distortion (and other features such as rumble, crackle, hiss, etc.) in mind. (Modern producers often try to replicate the pleasant saturation of analog equipment – and sometimes add vinyl-sounding artifacts, for better or for worse.) A well-mastered digital recording should (and does!) sound great, but I think the problem is that many CDs aren't well mastered and many were overly compressed, sometimes with terrible clipping, in service of the dreadful "loudness wars." In 2022 most dance music is produced digitally to begin with, and DJed digitally as well; presumably mastering engineers and DJs have figured out how to make it sound good when it's played in a club.
- i_am_proteus 4y ago
  Old albums were also recorded, mixed, and mastered on tape, which naturally saturates and compresses a bit in a way many listeners find pleasing to the ear.
adql 4y ago
Loudness war had many, many victims and the sound murders still happen to this day. I wish replay gain was standarized to a level where every player could just add few DBs in analog way for those songs that use more of the dynamic range, instead of mastering engineers having to choose between "loud" and "correct"

musicale 4y ago

CDs can support 90+dB of dynamic range, which is pretty great, with much less distortion and noise. A good classical recording can show this off pretty well. On the other hand, 80s club music was presumably mixed and mastered with vinyl-style distortion (and other features such as rumble, crackle, hiss, etc.) in mind. (Modern producers often try to replicate the pleasant saturation of analog equipment – and sometimes add vinyl-sounding artifacts, for better or for worse.) A well-mastered digital recording should (and does!) sound great, but I think the problem is that many CDs aren't well mastered and many were overly compressed, sometimes with terrible clipping, in service of the dreadful "loudness wars." In 2022 most dance music is produced digitally to begin with, and DJed digitally as well; presumably mastering engineers and DJs have figured out how to make it sound good when it's played in a club.

i_am_proteus 4y ago
Old albums were also recorded, mixed, and mastered on tape, which naturally saturates and compresses a bit in a way many listeners find pleasing to the ear.

adql 4y ago

Loudness war had many, many victims and the sound murders still happen to this day. I wish replay gain was standarized to a level where every player could just add few DBs in analog way for those songs that use more of the dynamic range, instead of mastering engineers having to choose between "loud" and "correct"