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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)

#161

Post by genewitch »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #145
chownie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 year…

10k mi/yr is a nice round "lease" number of miles. Are you sure you don't value the resale value of your car more than the joy value?

someone, above: > believing you hunted down a 'deal' causes you to wildly change how you perceive value at an emotional level.

I'm going to quote myself, paraphrased, because i forget the exact phrasing.

"All else equal, which tastes better: ice cream you've paid for; or ice cream that cost you nothing?"

edit: i didn't intend the above to be snark, even though it may read that way.

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

#163

Post by basisword »

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.

The dynamic range of the format isn't the issue though, it's the mastering. CD mastering largely pushed volume at the expense of dynamic range (part of the reason we see endless remasters these days). Vinyl doesn't automatically mean a better master but older stuff is much less compressed.

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

#164

Post by Borealid »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #125
chownie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> He does not value the thing at 1300 dollars If you decline to sell a thing for an easy 1300, doesn't that mean you value it at 1300 or more?

Technically no, because selling a thing is both a risk and a cost (of time and money).

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

#165

Post by rglullis »

pwarner wrote: post #159

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.

If the mix is the bigger issue, why does the media format matter?

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

#166

Post by killerstorm »

pier25 wrote: post #160
pineaux wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Objectively we care about the amount of information in the signal, not air movement. Air movement is just a medium which conveys information. It's not just "subjective perception", it's the meaning of the process.

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

#167

Post by redwall_hp »

steveBK123 wrote: post #114
dintech wrote: post #99

In electronic music we've been pressing the same DAT to vinyl and CD since the 90s. Subsequently replaced by .wav. Tracks come out of the DAW pretty loud these days, it's characteristic of the genre.

Do you think the removal of technical limitations re: the number of tracks & voices has introduced "loudness" as well in terms of more distinct sounds competing for the same sonic space? It's crazy watching some of the producer YT videos now and they open up these projects with 105 tracks, multi-layered/multi-voice drums, etc.

They did that back in the reel to reel tape days too...it was just destructive. Songs could have tons of layers, but they had to bounce tracks down to stay within track limits for the final mix.

Queen's music is a massive pile of overdubs, especially for vocals and guitar. The Beatles also, and they were heavily into looping (physically cutting audio tape and gluing it in a loop, then re-recording it). Vocal and guitar double-tracking has also been the norm since the 50s, at least.

80s pop was also generally full of synthesizer stacks, where MIDI from one keyboard was simultaneously triggering several synths to create layers.

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

#168

Post by globular-toast »

buo wrote: post #21

Are there any known ways to undo the compression? Assuming no clipping, the process should be reversible, right?

No, it's a destructive process. It's like trying to get back the original texture of wood after you've sanded it down. The best you're going to get is an approximation of what it might have been like.

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

#169

Post by jonhohle »

rglullis wrote: post #165
pwarner wrote: post #159

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.

If the mix is the bigger issue, why does the media format matter?

I read that as: SACD customers expect a better mix.

The format is only relevant in that it requires audiophile level dedication and money to use the format in the first place. Not dissimilar to vinyl before its recent boom.

I have an SACD setup, but for what I want to listen to, everything is out of print and secondary market is insane. Players can be found relatively cheaply at thrift stores (many don’t bluray and multi-CD carousels support it with digital output).

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

#170

Post by iainmerrick »

lmm wrote: post #64
buildsjets wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep 3 pressings of Led Zep II out so I can demonstrate the difference to people who don’t believe that there is one. A first-week Robert Ludwig mastered version, a second-week pressing of the Ahmet Ertegun disaster, and 1977 remaster that really sounds just as good as the 1969 RL mix and is a lot cheaper. $20 for a VG+ copy compared to $1300. I am not insane so I did not spend $1300 on a used vinyl record, I found…

> 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?

Even if you think in purely transactional terms like "asset currently worth $1300", what's wrong with holding onto an asset? Especially one that's likely to appreciate, not depreciate, as long as you look after it carefully.

And in the meantime, you get to enjoy owning it.

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