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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)

#151

Post by jerf »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #105
thaumasiotes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He thinks that way because it's the only correct way to think. Try raising the value of the record and see what you think about it.

Mathematically that's absolutely true. Emotionally, it feels different. It's fascinating to see downright angry gut reactions! A few years ago my friend was selling his expensive camera on Kijiji. I asked him to sell it to me for slightly less as a friendly discount. He told me that's the same as just randomly one day giving me a wad of cash, so why would he do that?? I thought he's crazy and was a little bit offende…

"Buy for $x, have and not sell for $x, same mathematically."

Sort of. People are being less irrational than it sounds if you account for transaction costs. There's a lot of stuff I might "sell" if I could point a video-game-like pointer at it and right click and hit "sell", and it just instantly disappeared and money was credited to my bank account. Perhaps even more if buying was just as easy and I didn't need to hang on to something like my drill which I don't use very often and I could trivially "rent" it from the market by buying, using it, and selling in mere minutes.

But in practice one-off selling for anything less than $100 or so is a waste of time because there are significant transaction costs for one-off events like that.

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

#152

Post by pineaux »

pier25 wrote: post #146
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.

That is a false way of saying it. Because then you are unpacking what dBs are, which is fascinating, but not how humans perceive sound. We use dBs exactly because it approaches human experience of sound better (although still shitty) than sound pressure would. A better logarithmic system would use base 2, I think phons tried to popularize that, but signal processing calculation with a base 2 log is less convenient than a base 10 log. So I think that is the reason.

For who wants to know: sound perception doubles every 10dB so. 30db of dynamic range is about 8 times as much dynamic range from the perceptual perspective.

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

#153

Post by thatguy0900 »

bravura wrote: post #79
lmm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not insane so I did not spend $1300 on a used vinyl record, I found mine for $2 at Goodwill. How is holding onto it instead of selling it for $1300 any less insane than buying it for $1300 in the first place?

Who taught you this? And why do you think this way?

It's the thought process you learn by having some financial issues in life. You feel guilty for owning expensive things instead of selling them to buy other things.

I have the same problems with trading cards I own from a long time ago that are now expensive, I can keep them for sentimental reasons or sell them to put it towards some bill

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

#154

Post by CarVac »

jlarcombe wrote: post #142
CarVac wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Regardless, for me the CD is actually painful to listen to even at low volumes, while the vinyl is excellent.

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

#155

Post by CarVac »

esikich wrote: post #55
Slow_Hand wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The loudness is an aesthetic choice. The 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.

Sometimes limitations can have benefits.

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

#156

Post by Jach »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #116
mrweasel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prove it wrong with numbers not appeals to emotion please But my point is that I don't care about the numbers. If fact my complaint was that it was made into a financial decision, just because the record happens to be worth $1300. If it was a $10 record, bought used at $2, then few would argue that you should sell it and make $8. My argument is that it doesn't matter if you could make $8 or $1298, not if you enjoy…

The thread started with calling those who buy a record at 1300, and I quote, insane. Argument was made that keeping a 1300 record is equally insane or not. That is the discussion here. It started about whether 1300 was sane or not. It was not turned into that discussion by people who hussle. It is a massive massive massive privilege of us here to even ponder keeping a record we bought for 2 which could be sold for 13…

You are assuming symmetries where there are none. I want a thing, discover it's readily available for $1300, that seems insane, so I don't buy it. By chance I acquire the thing from a source that was unaware of its fair market value for $2, amazing deal. I have the thing without having to pay an insane price, I am happy. Now here comes an insane person who wants it enough to offer me $1300. Both parties must benefit from an exchange for there to be a transaction, but the benefit is always subjective to them, depends on public and private information, there's no symmetry in buying/selling, and the equations have inequalities rather than equal signs. Now if the offer is sufficiently higher than $1300, or I know I can find the thing again for sufficiently less, or I find myself in need of the $1298 unrealized gain for other things, then sure, it becomes insane to not sell, but absent such factors refusing a fair market offer at a price you wouldn't ever entertain paying yourself is not insane. Additionally, prices aren't static, platonic things. If someone is insane enough to offer $1300, perhaps they are insane enough to offer $2600 in a year, I will be enjoying the thing in the meantime.

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

#157

Post by prmoustache »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #82
bravura wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who taught you this? And why do you think this way?

He thinks that way because it's the only correct way to think. Try raising the value of the record and see what you think about it.

The fact it sold once at that price doesn't mean there is still someone willing to buy it at that price.

And he doesn't necessarili need thos $1300

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

#158

Post by hluska »

pembrook wrote: post #83
bravura wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who taught you this? And why do you think this way?

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…

I don’t see any sign they own the original pressing which is $1300. Instead they own the 1977 remaster which apparently sounds as good as the original pressing though I don’t own the original. The 1977 remaster sells for between $5 and $50 depending on grade. I paid $3 for mine and it might be worth $25 or $30 of if I did a lot of leg work.

You’re making a lot of assumptions here in your thinking. The first one is that you can just randomly turn around and sell that record for $1300. Hitting those peaks usually only happens with in person sales or amongst collectors who know each other well. It’s incredibly expensive to get to that point and requires thousands of hours of work. For a normal person without extensive contacts, it’s still a lot of leg work for a fraction of that price. That might yield maybe $30 an hour.

Some people value their time higher than that; it’s really not that deep.

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

#159

Post by pwarner »

I've taken to buying SACDs when possible. The format supports higher dynamic range, but that barely matters. The mix is the bigger issue and SACD mixes are often better. Note you need an SACD player. And also note this only applies for playing on a proper HiFi or with good headphones at least. In your car, etc you probably want the compressed mix.

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

#160

Post by pier25 »

pineaux wrote: post #152
pier25 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That is a false way of saying it. Because then you are unpacking what dBs are, which is fascinating, but not how humans perceive sound. We use dBs exactly because it approaches human experience of sound better (although still shitty) than sound pressure would. A better logarithmic system would use base 2, I think phons tried to popularize that, but signal processing calculation with a base 2 log is less convenient th…

> That is a false way of saying it

As an audio engineer I'm well aware of how decibels work and why we use them.

You're talking about subjective perception but I'm talking about objective measurements.

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