'80s vinyl sound like CDs?


This is primarily for those of us who agree that vinyl sounds better than CD, and is not meant to restart the vinyl vs CD debate. Is it just me, or have others noted that a lot of the vinyl releases from the mid to late '80s sound more like CDs than traditional vinyl? The soul that usually comes through with vinyl is missing, and to my ear sounds like a high quality (but sterile) CD. I don't think it is just the DDA recording chain, because today's digitally recorded vinyl sounds much better. Is it maybe because the recording engineers were still figuring out how to get the best sound out of digital, or did they use lower sampling rates in the 80s?
128x128mrvordo
It should be mentioned that a lot of companies, RCA and others, were producing very thin vinyl records in the 80s, perhaps to save money, who knows.
Mrvordo, I use Nordost SPM (reference cable from the late 90's) for Speaker cables and Morrow Audio for IC's. I switched to Morrow because they sound as good or better than the Nordost for a fraction of the price. I don't like cables that SOUND like anything. I like to hear my equipment ,not cables. A great cable does this. It should be transparent and not colored. Also, cables with boxes of any type don't allow the energy thru, so you lose a lot of the initial attack and dynamics.
Hey Matt,

I have heard good things about Nordost, but the Baldur cable that I tried, while more open and slightly less congested in the mids, didn't have the attack, inner detail, or bass, of my old Krell Cogelco Black. I considered them comparable, but not what I thought was accurate. They were colored in their own way, with a slight nod to leanness. I realize that this is just one cable, and it and the Krell did sound much better than the Transparent Super, but I haven't compared it to a Transparent Ultra yet, which I hope to do soon.
Maybe I can get a chance to try the Morrow sometime.

Thanks and good listening,
Mike
Mike, I concur with your experiences with Nordost, having owned the Valhalla and Heimdall cables and Valhalla and Brahma cords. They are definitely not neutral, though folks who do not know the true meaning of the word neutral insist that they are. To me, neutral means natural sounding, with the tone neither being rolled off, warm and fuzzy, nor artificially highlighting the upper frequencies to try to spotlight more detail, as the Nordost cables do. I have heard Nordost cables work well with some darker sounding gear/rooms, just as I have heard Kubala Sosna and Cardas cables work well with some brighter sounding gear/rooms.

All cables sound like something, unless they are not plugged in. Now folks with a darker system/room may think that brighter cables sound like nothing, just as folks with a brighter system/room may feel that darker cables sound like nothing. The key is simply to balance the music in the room to your taste, regardless of how this is accomplished. Some may prefer to spend their money on the room itself, others the speakers or gear, and others yet will spend it on cables and cords. Whatever the path, the ultimate goal is the same for all of us, to balance the sound of our system to fit our own personal musical tastes.
I don't want us to get off topic, but well said Jmcgrogan2. I've come to consider cables as a component themselves, with pluses and minuses just like any component. The trick is balancing everything in the system to get proper neutral natural sound.

Good listening,
Mike