Is New Vinyl Exempt from Loudness Wars?
My experience has been mixed. I though the Annie Lennox and Bennet/Gaga LPs from last year excellent while Florence & The Machine's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful was compressed garbage. I also found Adele's 21 almost unlistenable in both CD and LP - compressed with annoyingly audible distortion. I believe it's all in the mastering. Good masters sound good, bad ones don't. Happy listening! |
Mapman - what follows is a copy and paste of some of the research I did and posted on my system thread on Loudness Wars. you might recall seeing it? Due to the unfinished state of virtual systems I am not able to link it, so I copy part of it here as I feel it is relevant to your thread. I spoke with Maegan Ritchat of Lacquer Channel a couple of times last year about this to get some answers about Loudness Wars and the real differences I hear between Vinyl and Cd. http://lacquerchannel.com/the-engineers/maeghan-Ritchat/ Lacquer Channel is one of the largest mastering studios in Canada. translated from my conversation with Maegan. ********************************** 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. For example. If the band is bass heavy like a rock or reggae band, the bass may need to be filtered at 40 hz, or put into mono below 40 hz. This prevents the grooves from being cut too wide (<------->) and even running into one another. One of the factors deciding this is how long the songs run on the vinyl side being cut. On the high frequency end depending on how SSSSShhhhh or how Tizzy the digital file sounds; if it was captured sounding a little harsh, a 16k filter can be used as one option with the vinyl. Just one reason vinyl may sound a little more rolled off, smoother, compared to its digital equivalent on some records. The end result is a less fatiguing sound with vinyl, once this "loudness" has been toned down. Maegan said in her experiences to date with customers who have heard digital and vinyl from redbook CD level source files on resolving systems...customers generally prefer the vinyl. So a couple reasons above why the sound differs between the vinyl and cd, even though the digital master might have been done at 44,1k Hz 16 bits the red book cd standard. Now if the Digital master file is higher than the CD standard 44,1khz. 16 bits This leads to... the second finding and Higher Rez files. When Higher Rez Digital files are available like 96khz/24 bit or higher - it makes sense to use them and these are indeed usually used for the vinyl cut. So when you buy the vinyl you are probably getting the LP's made from the higher rez files if available. Maegan confirmed this. This however would need to be confirmed on a per LP basis with the mastering studio involved. The genre makes a difference from a general perspective. She agreed that Classical, Opera and Jazz for example are in general terms, better files to begin with, in that they are more dynamic than your typical rock, pop group digital masters which have more loudness factor and compression. |
It's hit or miss with the new stuff, for reasons stated above. You have to make sure where it's sourced from. However, if you go with the established re-issue labels, such as MoFi, DCC, Classic Records and many others, it's clearly stated the records were cut from the original masters, i.e. analog. Do a little research. There are MANY vinyl records being re-issued from many, many labels now that go back to the ORIGINAL ANALOG MASTERS. I'd give some links here to internet sellers that specialize in this. There is a TON of good stuff out there sourced from the original analog masters. However, I don't know if it's allowed to give a direct link in this case. If it is, someone please advise and I'll throw a few out there. If it's not and you want to know, send me an e-mail and I'll answer directly. I've got a LOT of the re-issue stuff, and it's very,very good. WAY Better than any CD version, and usually better than hi-res digital files. Be advised, as a disclaimer, I am a resolute vinyl junkie. To me the best vinyl always trumps the best digital. Cheers, Crazy Bill |
Speaking as someone who masters for production, I can tell you that, broadly, everything said above is true. Essentially, it is all in the mastering, and there is no reliable way to tell if a given LP has been mastered appropriately for that medium. Proper LP mastering is distinctly different from CD mastering in nearly all cases. With LPs, there is no absolute 0 dBFS ceiling to compress up against, as well as a number of other aspects of LP production that require very different mastering considerations. (That’s why LP vs. CD "shootouts" of the "same" recording are, in nearly all cases, simply bogus.) But none of that means that the same, highly compressed, CD master can’t, with some exceptions or minor modifications, be cut to an LP. The LP in that case will likely sound like crap, quite possibly worse even than the "identical" CD, but there is no way for the buyer to know that in advance. I work with both LPs and digital media a lot. As far as I’m concerned, except as an artifact and as still arguably the best archival media, LPs should otherwise be obsolete. There is no theoretical reason why Redbook CDs, respectfully and properly mastered, shouldn’t in all cases sound as good as or better than any LP. The fact that they often don’t speaks more to the irresistible temptation to abuse the remarkable power of digital technology than to some intrinsic sonic superiority of the LP. In short, I’m sorry, but, as a consumer, there is no reliable and consistent answer to your question. Good luck and more’s the pity. |
