What's up with America?

My favorite review of this lame-ass band, from Robert Christgau:
History/America's Greatest Hits [Warner Bros., 1975]
Randy Newman once described "A Horse With No Name" as "this song about a kid who thinks he's taken acid," and at least back then they were domesticating CSNY instead of CSN. More tuneful than Seals & Crofts but with less to say, which they've managed to conceal by establishing meaningless highschool verse as a pop staple, they might be remembered as the '70s answer to the Association if they could come up with one song half as lively as "Windy" or "Along Comes Mary." C-

I have always liked their music.

Whenever I played them tho, I had to turn the volume upwards. Their recording levels always seemed lower than others'. Perhaps this might account for a sense of lack of detail.

Has this been changed recently? Or does the BDP 95 somehow adjust for this?

1972, "America" debuts, and it's my first year away at college. My suitemates have a killer stereo, all vinyl of course...oh my! I still need to drag that out every so often. Have heard them dismissed as an anemic answer to Crosby, Stills and company, but I don't care, a guilty pleasure if you will. What about that "Horse with no name, and singing in the purple rain".....what on earth were they talking about?! LOL

"what has been engineered into this great wonder?"

Less compression.

a couple of their records were produced by george martin, who did a pretty good job with the beatles. as for their musical merits iw on't comment (altho i did find "sister golden hair" maddeningly catchy).

Mellow gold songs at their finest!

Happy Listening!

Well I suppose if my name was 'Joe' I'd have the option of changing it. I love that tune, can't help it. I like a few others as well. Compression eh. Not the same as increasing dynamic range with a Dbx. But how does that reconcile the fact that I can't achieve the same resolution on my TT as with the CDP? The CD is much more resolving. Sounding like what was actually intended.

1. I'm trying to understand compression and expansion. I am assuming that there is expansion (or at least no compression) when I listen to my vinyl America because the level is pretty low. Presumably, the musical peaks are not compressed, so the rest of the material sounds somewhat muted. In contrast, if the CD has compression, then everything will sound a bit louder (except the peaks of course) and low level detail might be more perceptible? Like, isn't it compression that causes TV commercials to sound louder and clearer?

2. Alternatively, perhaps your CD player is simply better than your vinyl playback system -- the BDP 95 is no slouch. Could you share your vinyl playback system details?

Defining compression is much more involved than that but I think you nailed it in a nutshell. However I think both the vinyl and CD are just as compressed. The only difference I experience is better overall resolution with the CD. No difference in dynamic range to my ears at all. My TT's are an Oracle Alexandria with FR arm and Dynavector Ruby, and also an Oracle Paris with Oracle arm and various cartridges. Could be my technical ability is lacking in setting up my TT's but I have not experienced this opposite effect with other source material. The vinyl is always more resolving. I'm convinced there's a degree of re-engineering on the CD. Maybe not more overall compression but possibly a change at certain frequencies thereby cleaning up sibilance?