It’s a supreme irony that the single most important advantage that CDs have ON PAPER -dynamic range - which is obviously (on paper) what, 40 or 50 times greater than vinyl or audio cassette? You know what I’m talking about. 90 dB dynamic range and 90 dB Signal to Noise Ratio. It sure sold me. OK, the irony is with all the aggressive dynamic range compression over the past twenty years the dynamic range of the highly touted CD has been compacted down to all red for many CDs, some SACDs, quite a few LPs. One need only take a gander at the Official Dynamic Range Database to see what the industry has wrought. But the situation is even worse than that. Even with uncompressed CDs the sound quality of digital lacks the color, tonality, and fullness in the bass that vinyl and cassettes provide as a matter of course. The King has no clothes.
