'80s vinyl sound like CDs?

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.

Agree with Mattmiller regarding the higher quality of original vinyl pressings over new vinyl, including 1980s pressings. The vinyl cutters back then were master craftsmen with years of experience.
In the case of digital vinyl, there was a learning curve and some records weren't pressed using proper RIAA equalization, but was corrected. Also during the 80s there were many AAD mastered recordings which made for good sounding vinyl. IME, it was certain record labels who were putting out these "CD like" pressings.
Also, there were no Loudness Wars with high compression back then. I was an audio engineer in the 80s and I think there was a lot of pride among the techs who produced vinyl that their product didn't sound like CDs.

And good point, Mapman regarding the POP digital recordings which made for some very bad vinyl.

Whoa to you Mattmiller :), I'm talking about what were new releases in the mid and late 80's, when the studios were starting to record everything digitally, not analog recordings and pressings which I completely agree were probably at the top of their game by the early 80's. And you may have a point about the cutting of vinyl in the 80's, but to me it's extremely easy to tell if a vinyl release from that time period was recorded digitally or not. And I'm not saying that today's pressing are better than pressings in the early 80's, just that most pressings today of new releases, recorded digitally, do sound comparably better than digitally recorded releases from the later part of the 80's.

I feel your pain on the price of vinyl. I too think they are too expensive, and I don't like what it's doing to the used market either.

And since you don't like cables with BOXES ;), what have you found to work well. I'm always looking for something to improve my system, and am using Transparent currently simply because I haven't found something better as yet. In the Audio Wasteland that I live in, I don't get to hear a lot of different equipment, so I would love to know what you have found.