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Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

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Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#141

Post by [deleted] »

chownie wrote: post #97
pembrook wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP has a valid question though. If you think its insane to spend that amount of money on it (essentially: it's not worth that much to you ), then you holding onto it instead of having $1300 is pretty much the exact same scenario? By holding onto it you're saying it is worth that much to you. It sounds like believing you hunted down a 'deal' causes you to wildly change how you perceive value at an emotional level. I w…

He wants the thing. He does not value the thing at 1300 dollars so he would not buy it for 1300 dollars. He found it for a lower value, he kept it because the point at the start was he wanted the thing. On the topic of HN users, is it our collective first day on earth?

[deleted]

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#142

Post by jlarcombe »

CarVac wrote: post #47
wk_end wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There'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.

The 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".

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#143

Post by puzzlingcaptcha »

pimeys wrote: post #11

I don't understand why they still release super compressed and loud masterings when most of the modern headphones are so good you don't really need to master for the old cheap stereo sets. And isn't headphones with Spotify the most common medium for music nowadays?

People consistently perceive louder music as better quality. That's why volume matching is critical in any audio equipment testing.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#144

Post by encom »

emsign wrote: post #66
sneela wrote: post #2

Also covered by Tech Radar (2025) -- You need to be careful when buying new vinyl – the digital music loudness war can mean they sound worse than second-hand records: https://www.techradar.com/audio/turntables/you-need-to-be-ca...

I prefer to buy original releases of CDs second hand on Discogs. I then digitize them with Exact Audio Copy. I never bought into the recent vinyl hype. Though I really like the beautiful design of many new vinyl releases, I don't think they are for being played. But I used to buy new and used vinyl as a teenager to actually listen to them, and occasionally I still buy used vinyl. Vinyl records from the flea market we…

>I never bought into the recent vinyl hype.

For me, it's the expense and the inconvenience... as the meme goes. But anyway - I just like it; when I put on a record it's like "I'm doing this now and nothing else". Sitting on the couch and listening to Dark Side with a glass of wine. Remembering when my dad used to play records and I wasn't allowed to touch it because the stylus was expensive and fragile. It's a vibe, as the kids say.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#145

Post by ToucanLoucan »

chownie wrote: post #97
pembrook wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP has a valid question though. If you think its insane to spend that amount of money on it (essentially: it's not worth that much to you ), then you holding onto it instead of having $1300 is pretty much the exact same scenario? By holding onto it you're saying it is worth that much to you. It sounds like believing you hunted down a 'deal' causes you to wildly change how you perceive value at an emotional level. I w…

He wants the thing. He does not value the thing at 1300 dollars so he would not buy it for 1300 dollars. He found it for a lower value, he kept it because the point at the start was he wanted the thing. On the topic of HN users, is it our collective first day on earth?

> On the topic of HN users, is it our collective first day on earth?

The disease of financialization at work. Money is all that matters to people, everything is converted into money. It's only value is what you could get from selling it, and/or what you spent to acquire it.

Like those weird fuckers who buy $200k supercars so they can sit in a damn garage. (She said, having put 30k miles on a Corvette inside of 3 years)

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#146

Post by pier25 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #110

Vinyl literally has less than half the dynamic range of CD and has always been compressed before cutting. Hard limiting is a (stupid) choice, but some limiting has always been necessary. The "warm vinyl sound" is basically analog compression with added low-end distortion from the RIAA compensation and some wrinkles at the high end caused by stylus resonance.

> Vinyl literally has less than half the dynamic range of CD

A lot less than half.

It's around 20-30db and every 10db is a factor of 10. The CD has between 100-1000x more dynamic range.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#147

Post by organsnyder »

BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #127
maqp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA: https://dr.loudness-war.info/ is a great place to look for info on dynamic range of releases, and also, a great place to find new music with excellent dynamic range.

PSA 2: the formula used here can easily be gamed via inaudible phase alteration and can't be used to compare CD and LP. Ears are still much better until a correctly designed metric arrives.

Would engineers purposefully game the metric, though?

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#148

Post by encom »

TylerE wrote: post #77
larodi wrote: post #6

Depending on which vinyl you're talking about. I care very little about big names signed to big corpo - they can do whatever they want to their vinyl. There are plenty of indi/underground artists releasing both on vinyl and tampe, who succumbed to nothing, but are alive and well actually. Check bandcamp more often for clues, should you disagree.

Yeah, I know a lot of indie artists. Most of that vinyl is produced straight off the 44.1/16 digital master. If you think it's analog (or in many cases even properly mastered at all), you're fooling yourself.

>44.1/16 digital

This is already way beyond what vinyl is able to reproduce. The best case is roughly 12-bits PCM equivalent. Literally not an issue in the slightest.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#149

Post by sombragris »

emsign wrote: post #66
sneela wrote: post #2

Also covered by Tech Radar (2025) -- You need to be careful when buying new vinyl – the digital music loudness war can mean they sound worse than second-hand records: https://www.techradar.com/audio/turntables/you-need-to-be-ca...

I prefer to buy original releases of CDs second hand on Discogs. I then digitize them with Exact Audio Copy. I never bought into the recent vinyl hype. Though I really like the beautiful design of many new vinyl releases, I don't think they are for being played. But I used to buy new and used vinyl as a teenager to actually listen to them, and occasionally I still buy used vinyl. Vinyl records from the flea market we…

> I never bought into the recent vinyl hype.

This. I'm 55. My teenage years were in the 1980s, where CDs started to appear but vinyl was still mainstream. I remember Dad having a significant vinyl library and I also got my own collection.

But I hated caring for that thing. The medium is finicky, prone to scratches and whatnot, and CDs had more length and also more range and better sound. So as soon as I was able to get CDs, I got rid of my vinyl collection faster than one does it with a hot potato in their hands. I used vinyl daily, hated the whole burden of caring for it; and against CDs, I really found them wanting.

Too bad the medium got degraded with idiots who used dynamic compression, but inherently CDs and lossless digital audio in general is way much better. I never understood the vinyl resurgence, until some people explained it as being something more performative and also a way to get better artwork and physical mementos of the music. Understandable, but I still feel it's weird.

Re: Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)

#150

Post by pier25 »

breezybottom wrote: post #119
esikich wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much less of a problem than it used to be because streaming platforms normalize the tracks anyway so it's been fading away for a while now.

I don't know where you're getting this. For rock/pop music, it's as bad as it's ever been.

Yep many current pop songs are commonly mastered at around -8 LUFS even peaking at -5 LUFS which is quite loud.
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