Is New Vinyl Exempt from Loudness Wars?

The Dynamic Range Database is a good resource for comparing new vinyl and CD releases, at least in terms of raw dynamic range:

http://dr.loudness-war.info/

The vinyl releases aren't always there, but are listed enough such that I use it as a resource when buying new vinyl.

It's also interesting to look at older releases and compare the CD and vinyl versions.

Historically vinyl gets high marks, but no format is completely exempt from overly agressive dynamic range compression. Not vinyl, not SACD, not Japanese SHM CDs, not even hi res downloads. 

When the vinyl is cut from a digital master the engineer must TONE THIS DIGITAL MASTER LOUDNESS FACTOR DOWN. He/she has no choice on this because of actual physical limitations with the cut grooves on the record, and noise itself.

This statement does not sound right. We've yet to encounter a digital master file that we had to 'tone down'; what you are dealing with here is simply that you have to find the right level to get everything in the groove (so this could be simple semantics), but IME you don't have to limit or compress the signal going into the grooves to do that. You don't have to limit the bass either. You do have to be on the lookout for out of phase bass, which can occur in multi-tracked recordings; this can be dealt with by a passive process that senses the out-of-phase bass and makes it mono below a certain frequency for a few milliseconds. But if you are careful and spend some time with the recording, quite often even that process can be avoided simply by changing the groove depth and perhaps adjusting the overall level by a db or so. One or 2 db can have a huge effect when mastering an LP; -3 db means half as much power in the cutterhead- half as much excursion. So reducing the level by only a db might be all that is needed to make the project work, and in the end result that db is hardly audible.

It really comes down to production- if the producer is smart they won't send the LP mastering house the same file that was used to master the CD (which often has limiting, EQ and compression), instead they will send the master digital file with the understanding that the LP mastering engineer will deal with it as needed.

But in all cases the LP is being mastered with something very much like the master digital file, whereas the CD likely is not. Further, people do still master with analog tape, which is great when it happens. This is why the LP usually sounds better- its closer to the source if nothing else.

"they will send the master digital file with the understanding that the LP mastering engineer will deal with it as needed. "

Isn’t that pretty much what they sent the CD mastering engineer as well?

The end result will depend mostly on what determines how it will be dealt with at that point. Is it individual discretion? Maximizing the sound quality? Or compromising it in some way for whatever other reason?

My guess is as mentioned earlier it probably depends on the company and their target customers. That is assuming it costs more to produce a high quality product than otherwise, which is usually the case. Costs will be managed accordingly and differently by maker. In the end is it any different than last go round with records? Most are compromised (like CDs) but a few labels (and maybe some particular artists with clout) focus on sound quality more than others. Those are the ones that might be worth it it seems to me. Unless one just likes to play records regardless (we already know how that ended last time).

In the end it sounds like a very mixed bag, not any different than CDs, except with a format where the ceiling is theoretically higher at least in terms of dynamic range, something mostly only select few audiophiles with really good systems might care about. Resolution as well but the actual significance of the technical differences there are even more debatable.

And only a very few these days would even begin to think about large format tape formats, which is probably the only format historically that most would agree is the real champ.

High res digital can stake a claim even today I think in some cases if one looks hard enough. Someday perhaps not too far off I expect high res digital will in fact gain traction and exclusively claim a significant niche as the high end for home audio fidelity.

Records may survive as well not so much because of sound quality but because records are a nice product you can hold, read look at whatever, you know, teh physical connection  that we largely lost with tiny CDs.

Dear mapman: Today the best 32/384 digital recordings ( if well recorded. ) playingback with units with 32/384 technology beats the analog experience.

Today we are not on those old times of the CD " terrible sounds ". Digital grow up and still does and the players are improving day by day where the analog experience was not so dynamics in that grow up as digital.

The true analog experienc at home is an expensive alternative on what we need for the LP really can shines: right TT, right cartridge ( more than one. ), right tonearm, right phono stage, right line preamp, etc, etc where that " right " means a expensive and well designed items.

In my case I justify not only the very high analog experience price but the in deep learning knowledge and skills we need to " handle LPs" in the right way because I own over 6K LPs where many of them I can't get it in digital format.

If you don't own a good number of LPs my advise is try to improve your digital alternative and just forget the analog experience.

Analog alternative is full of anomalies and ditortions during playback and many of those anomalies starts in the recording " land ". Only to name one of those anomalies/added distortions exist two heavy equalizations proccess with an LP: RIAA equalization during the whole recording process and the inverse RIAA eq. during playback through the phono stage. In both cases both proccess makes a heavy degradation to the musical signal. These not happens with the digital alternative and many other " things ".

I can tell you that I enjoy the music even in my car audio. Music has no " formats ", is just MUSIC.


Regards and enjoy the music,
R.