'80s vinyl sound like CDs?

I have many duplicates of 80s rock and pop vinyl and CDs and play them in high quality CD and record players. Assuming the variables created by my gears are not being considered here, I find a few CDs and vinyls similar but on most cases, vinyl is always better. However, I find some reissues of CDs in the 2000s significantly improved over those originally released in the 80s.

I believe a lot of it was because of digital mixing and mastering at the time. As you have stated, digital has come a long way in the last couple of decades, and today's digitally recorded vinyl sounds much better. I notice that many CD's AND LP's recorded in the 80's and early 90's sound pretty bad. So I would blame the poor sound on the terrible sound that early digital brought to the table.

Whoa there Mrvordo, These statements about new vinyl sounding better today are just not true IMHO. By the 80's they were in the TOP of there game recording and pressing vinyl records, thats why they sound a lot more dynamic and full and rich.Of course you have to take into account the record label. Atlantic was putting out a lot of mediocre sounding pop along with Colunbia. Verve and GRP, EMI, MOFI were putting out excellent sounding vinyls all through the 60's 70's 80's. I would buy a 30 year old record that is original and not noisy, before I pay 20-30 bucks for a new pressing of whatever. And the old copy will blow away anything pressed off a digital master today. Most of these master vinyl makers are long gone and the new ones are not very good IMO. In the early days of Digital (1982). We were all lied to by the record companys that this new medium "sounded better" and was more rugged than fragile vinyl albums. All I know is vinyl records have gotten so expensive over the last 5 years its insane now. I was at the largest record show in North America a couple weeks ago and found it very hard to find great prices on used CLEAN sounding records.Times are changing.Also Mrvordo, On a side note: If you ever get away from cables with BOXES on them, you will open up a whole new world and truly experience what your awesome system is capable of! (this from a prior MIT user)

Yes, I notice a trend as described in sound of vinyl into the 80s and suspect a lot of it has to do with gradual incursion of digital in general into recording and playback systems over time. Also 80's pop heavy infatuation with synthesizers and more electronic music in general also contributes to the overall perceived change in sound in general. It took about 10-15 years or so for digital to really start to mature and things have gotten progressively better since. THose early digital influenced recordings that still had a somewhat decent release on vinyl sound better than ever on remastered CDs today.

Today's digitally recorded vinyl might sound better than then mainly because the digital systems used and understanding of how to use them well is better than ever today. Part of that is higher resolution used at various stages I am certain but the technology overall is much better.

Modern vinyl quality is problematic in many cases I would say, but the best vinyl releases of the best modern digital recordings certainly have the potential to surpass CD due to limitations with the CD redbook format that do not apply to vinyl. How often does that actually occur? Good question. I would like to know.

HI res digital audio formats help push the bar higher for what can be done with digital playback today, but the technologies needed to do it commercially on a large scale are still problematic and not fully mature yet either. Part of that is the folks who came up with Redbook CD fformat really did a good job of delivering a format capable of meeting the needs of most for a long period of time into the future.