That's just not true and vinyl doesn't sound better by any measure.
replyIt's true from time to time. Low's last digital releases are actually unlistenable due to heavy-handed compression, but the vinyl seems to have been spared.
replyI had to record the vinyl to get usable digital files.
The loudness and compression on Low's last couple of albums is very much deliberate, so it's surprising that the vinyl doesn't have it. Though I heard similar claims about Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, which was also intensely compressed for artistic effect.
replyThis. The loudness is an aesthetic choice.
replyThe reason it was backed off for the vinyl master is most likely due to physical limitations of the medium. If the audio channels are too loud (wide) there is risk that the needle will jump out of the groove.
This is exactly why vinyl is inferior to tape and digital.
replySometimes limitations can have benefits.
replyYou mean beside all the noise it has?
replyIt's worse for recording arbitrary waveforms, sure. It's very well suited for music, though.
replyThere's compression and distortion for sure on the vinyl, but when you look at the waveform on the digital it's right up to the max. It completely changes the sound.
replyThe thing is, vinyl (and tape) typically can't reproduce waveforms like that accurately, so it's difficult to compare. You can take a hyper-compressed master, cut it to vinyl or record it to tape, then play it back in to a computer, and it'll look different and less "brickwalled".
replyRegardless, for me the CD is actually painful to listen to even at low volumes, while the vinyl is excellent.
replyI mean you literally just acknowledged evidence that it WASN'T for artistic effect.
replyI dunno if you’ve listened to these records in question but it’s very, very obviously for artistic effect. They’ve discussed it in interviews and stuff. Low wasn’t looking to get radio play with fractured collages of distorted noise. The “vinyl can’t reliably reproduce these waveforms” explanation someone else suggested makes the most sense.
replyArtists usually aren't involved at the mastering stage, at that point the music is already recorded and mixed.
replyIt’s completely true, when the vinyl has a different mastering. It can be a completely different version. It’s not because it’s vinyl
replyMastering doesn't change much. They're just going to roll off the low end a bit. A separate mix is an entirely different thing though.
replyIt really does on some records, if you’re interested check out some comparisons on YouTube. Many times it’s subtle eq tweaks, granted, and that won’t much matter. But a lot of older rock and pop records for example go from being super dynamic and well produced to completely crushed with boosted bass and treble to ‘modernize’ the sound.
replyYou can see some examples of how dynamic range (they don’t track ‘mastering’ overall) varies across releases on this site: https://dr.loudness-war.info/
Sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. Many releases get mastered separately for digital and for vinyl, and one or both of them often does “change much”. Usually the brickwall limiting (among other things) on the digital master.
replyI'd say "rarely" instead of "often" though it depends on the genre I guess. There are also a lot of genres that can never sound as good on vinyl simply due to the lack of dynamic range/silence; mostly classical and electronic.
reply> There are also a lot of genres that can never sound as good on vinyl simply due to the
replyinability to encode very low tones.