Why does new vinyl sound digital?

Take home a new vinyl release and chances are it's not going to sound as analog and good as you might expect. Why is that? If you want to learn more, grab a copy of Paul's new book, The Audiophile's Guide. www.amazon.com/Audiophiles-Gu...

[@AmericanConstellation]

I love this guy...but it took a long time to just say..."It's a digital recording, cut on vinyl"...

[@snepNL]

then put videos on x1.5 , saves allot of time and frustration.

[@Derpy1969]

Thank you. You da real hero, here.

[@birkinsornberger263]

kinda obvious though, isn't it?

[@FanaticDrummer]

Which is common sense when everything is done digitally lol But vintage records still sound dope even on Bluetooth record players.

[@luciomagini1389]

@@snepNL it's not the recording, it's the mastering

[@SAerror1]

Loudness wars is the real problem here, digital mastering done properly has little to no impact on what you hear.

[@Smith8340]

Such a shame the loudness war had to stuff up so many recordings

[@Locarco]

Fortunately, with the newest Loudness Normalization standard, we're heading to a whole new era of well mixed and dynamic music. Lodness wars are almos over and we can thank streaming services for that.

[@bradhardisty1652]

Yes it does. Bits never got all the textures of the sound source..

[@nanaholic01]

@Dezwarteschijf Wong. Digital mastering can be done with even less loudness than vinyl/analog because both the signal to noise ratio is better, the capability to store a wider dynamic range is higher, as well as the noise floor is lower for digital, so a quieter note will actually be stored/record better on CD/digital than it would on vinyl, and a louder note at that too, and capturing that change from super quiet to super loud is vastly superior on digital. As a format CD and a digital process is just vastly superior to an all anolog process + vinyl which is susceptable to noise and degration at every step of the production. So not only that a properly mastered digital master should sound identical to analog but in fact it should be better than a full analog production! The ONLY reason digital mastering is given a bad name and sound worse than analog in a lot of cases is because of the loudness war, that's it. When a modern CD is often master with even LESS dynmaic range than a vinyl master that is why we have a problem and why music on CD sounds so bad, yet that has nothing to do with the format or the limitation of the equipment, but everything to do with stupidity with the people handling the process. Modern CDs are made like giving a modern F1 car to a driver but only allowing them to drive in first gear, all the potential is wasted and of course that even an old F1 car from 50 years ago (vinyl) can lap the newest and the best.

[@Larstig81]

Loudness is a problem which existed when everybody has a stereosystem or amplifier with a loudness button. Many years ago. It was bad then and it is still bad.

[@thegood9]

This is why i've quit buying new vinyl. They are actually taking digitally remastered data and dumping to vinyl for sales. It pissed me off, and I'm done.

[@cole1714]

i mean, of course they are, what else would they do lol. NOBODY (that i listen to, at least) records on tape, or whatever analog medium you'd get the benefits of from a vinyl of that recording. Digital is just so much cheaper/easier/more conducive to the creative process.

[@k-dogg711]

Cole I know a fair share of newer artists that record on analogue. Mostly in the indie/rock sphere though.

[@sugnasugna]

K-DOGG yeah tame impala uses tape I wonder how the new album vinyl would sound

[@thegood9]

@@k-dogg711 foo fighters now mostly record on 24-track. I think Pearl Jam prefers analogue as well, too, but yeah, I understand the point. However, the "classic" sound associated with vinyl can still be "simulated" via high resolution transfers to vinyl, but then I would rather just listen to the original high resolution 24-32 bit 192kHz file on a really good system before I wanna hear a "vinylIZED" version of the same product... The marketing and sales are not surprisingly catering to ignorant and uninformed "new vinyl hipsters", for sure.

[@elsongs]

Plus they cost almost twice as much as a CD...

[@benkrake3678]

This is exactly why only collect vinyl for the music I listen to that was released before the digital revolution, or just as CD’s were just coming out in the early 1980’s when CD players were expensive, and most people still couldn’t afford them. I personally think that music after the digital revolution, especially music post 2000 is going to sound the same on vinyl as it would digital. Unless it was separately mastered in analog for vinyl, it’s going to sound exactly the same. I don’t fancy paying 3 times the price for a new aged album on vinyl that was mastered digitally.

[@JuggaloSupreme]

Oh but SO many people fall for it...

[@moe47988]

I wouldn't say "exactly" the same.. don't forget that vinyl colors the sound in ways that people find to be harmonically pleasing

[@MrDegsy69]

@@moe47988 That colouration being surface noise in the form of crackles and pops, surface noise, static and a dead, lack lustre centered bass response. You can also add reduced dynamic range to that list as well as the full frequency range of the master tape has to be physically restricted to squash it all into the restricted groove space when cutting the master lacquer. Apart from all that it sounds great not!

[@moe47988]

@@MrDegsy69 I'm not talking about crackles and pops, I'm talking about the sonic properties of passing audio physically through the needle and preamp. Have you ever wondered why there are so many different types of needles out there in a wide range of prices? That's why.

[@MrDegsy69]

@@moe47988 Analogue transcription is a dead letter office and is not worthy of further development? RCA developed and released a Capacitance Electronic Disc format back in 1981 based upon analogue vinyl stereo microgroove technology. It was a precision groove vinyl record slick coated in a silicone lubricant and placed in a protective sealed caddy. This behemoth rapidly worn out and mistracked after just a few plays. It was a dismal failure and resulted in bankruptcy for RCA records. That represented the pinnacle of Analogue stereo microgroove technology development and nothing like it has ever been attempted since. With the advent of the Compact Disc the music industry completely dropped the mastering and production of full analogue mastered vinyl records like a hot rock and retooled for full digital production in the mid nineties. The vinyl records you buy today have been mastered on a full digital production desk and transcribed to vinyl as an afterthought. Most people say that post Y2K vinyl sounds exactly like a CD. The reason for this is because the master lacquer and subsequent stamper have been produced from this digital master recording. Why would you want to mechanically transcribe it, apply a RIAA eq curve to it and subject it to the surface noise and contaminants that arsise from playing a vinyl record when you could just listen to the pure digital reference source file instead the way it was intended to be heard? Vinyl records only begin to even halfway make sense when they are fully analogue mastered which is very rare and expensive these days as technology and evolution have passed this process by! Stick with your legacy vinyls by all means but do be aware they are living on borrowed time. Quite a lot of people are now ripping their LPs to digital flac files to save the wear and tear on their records which rather defeats the object of owning and storing them in the first place to me.

[@vinylordie1301]

When releasing my album last year, we had to master the thing twice. Once for digital mediums, and again for the vinyl record. Two different listening experiences!

[@robsmith8386]

thats normal for most albums... many albums get like 4 masters for different formats

[@SingularityMedia]

This is due to the particular eccentricities of vinyl as a recording medium. What can be put to CD and sound great, just might not translate well to vinyl or may end up distorting.

[@robsmith8386]

@@SingularityMedia exactly, for example, with streaming services the bit rate can be up to 24 or so, but with CD it has to be 16

[@SingularityMedia]

@@robsmith8386 16bit is more than enough.

[@robsmith8386]

@Cicada 3301 they don't sound awful, they actually sound better than most streaming services, but in terms of bit rate streaming is better

[@publicdomainscience2650]

Funny thing is, that a CD and especially a SACD could have a higher dynamic range than most LPs actually had. But almost no recordings take advantage of that. Except eg some recordings of classic music today.

[@Akatosh86]

It's ironic that the LP format's shortcomings are actually the reason why they often 'sound better' - it's advantages cannot be abused like CD's have been.

[@joey1127]

SACD is fairly specialized so unless you are getting a remastered recording, not a lot of NEW music get's the SACD treatment. Jazz, Blues, Classical, some well recorded rock also gets the SACD remaster treatment here and there.

[@bradhardisty1652]

Higher dynamic range hasn't translated into capturing transients or layers.

[@JoeJ-8282]

IKR?!... SACD had great potential to be a new, and even better "replacement for the CD standard", (which, if ANY new medium is going to live into the future as long as the ongoing 40+ year lifespan of the CD for example, it would have to be *at least as good of sound quality as a properly mastered CD* is!), however, the SACD wasn't marketed to the masses properly, and its strengths were not emphasized enough, plus it was rather pricey, so everyone who wasn't fully informed of its advantages or didn't truly appreciate all it had to offer, just thought of SACD as "just an extremely expensive (regular) CD", therefore it never really caught on unfortunately! I was kind of looking forward to it becoming the new music standard too, because I really appreciate great sound quality, but many people, especially the younger generation don't really know or understand what really great *sound quality* means, all they really (know to) care about is convenience and ease of access to... Hence the popularity of MP3 downloads and such. But any audiophile or even just an average listener who cares about distortion, etc., knows that MP3 and most streaming music isn't even close to as good as a properly mastered and recorded CD or especially SACD can be!... I'm looking forward to seeing what truly better medium actually does replace the CD into the future... Who knows what it will end up being, but I think it's gonna have to be a combination of really great sound quality, (to keep the "audiophile" types happy), convenience and instant, anywhere ease of access to, universal playback ability on any device, especially portable ones, and of course a reasonably cheap cost to buy, otherwise it won't catch on long term and be able to become a standard that all in the music industry can adopt and invest in!... We shall see what happens... You have to keep an open mind to any and all possibilities, because it might end up being some totally new and radical technology that gets invented within the next few years or so that no-one has thought of yet!

[@MidwestBoom]

@@JoeJ-8282 yeah the real problem with sacd is just that it came out way too late

[@chriscutress6542]

"BRING DYNAMICS BACK" In the spirit of Bob Katz I'd put that on the back of my truck !

[@johneygd]

Indeed, quality over quantity.

[@infesticon]

Most anoying thing with cd is just how good digital would be for dynamics. On vinyl you will never have silince. There will be surface noise. CDs when there's a silince it's a total silince.

[@johneygd]

Stuart Dawson yeah but likely when theres music on a finyl recording record or a cassette tape, that serface noise get’s cancled out, you will only hear serface noise in silence parts of it,, unless those cassette tapes & finyl recordings are really degraded in quality.

[@chriscutress6542]

@@johneygd In the early days of 16-44.1 digital recording I would record live to digital DAT and use a Metal DBX Encoded Cassette as a backup. A few times there were dropouts on the DAT's and it would require that I edit the Cassette sections into the digital workstation to replace the dropouts. You couldn't hear the difference except where you knew where the edits were done. After a few months, listening back you would have forgotten about the edit points and couldn't really hear the difference. Of course keep in mind these were live recording so there was audience sfx and some level of room tone in these recordings. On vinyl, there are always the little clicks and pops of surface noise unless you feed the audio through a Cedar System or a properly aligned KLH Noise Eliminator.

[@johneygd]

Chris Cutress wow that’s pretty interesting,but aside from that ,,yeah those clicks you mentioned were indeed audible on those finyl recordings.

[@ryan.m.weisgerber]

Dude, you're so great. I love these videos. Thank you. 🙂

[@leonarddaneman810]

You have to look for the code, like AAD, on the CD. Analog master recording, Analog mixed, Digital format. This should be required on 'new' lp's as well. Like, AAA.

[@bradhardisty1652]

I like that.

[@DupageDragonsFan94]

Yes - that's brilliant! I agree. Only thing is, I can't remember the last time I saw those codes displayed on a CD (maybe the early 90s?). Another thing: unfortunately nobody cares anymore. People would rather instantly gratify themselves with streaming the most God-awful format (MP3). For at least the last 15 years, that's the way it has been - quantity (i.e. the ability to store more music) over quality. And when it comes to vinyl, only the AAA code matters for authentic analog quality, and good luck with that - the vast majority of everything is recorded, mixed, and mastered in digital (DDD). Very, very few people continue to record on analog 24-track machines, so there goes your first A in the code. Loudness wars mastering that Paul mentioned in the video certainly doesn't help quality either.

[@AndyP126]

SPARS codes went away decades ago. They don't exist any more.

[@MrDegsy69]

@@AndyP126 They badly need resurecting to shut up all the elitists and fake snake oil salesmen once and for all!

[@AndyP126]

@@MrDegsy69 That's all we need. Hipsters and "audiophiles" looking for vinyl records with AAA SPARS code on it.

[@chronojae]

Definitely something I've noticed too that has been bothering me. No dimension, and as you said, no dynamics! Thanks for the informational video :-)

[@mootbooxle]

I love your spirit and passion for audio quality!

[@jorgeamartineze120]

Excellent. Thank you for your time!!

[@SpeakerBuilder]

The best sounding vinyl records I own were produced in the 80's, and of course they all originate as multi-track tape recordings. The combination of tape recording/mastering and vinyl pressing provides that warmth we seek. If we want to go back to vinyl, lets go back to multi-track tape and two track tape mastering. Otherwise, pressing vinyl records from digital recordings seems silly. I have lots of CD's that sound fabulous, not quite as warm as the best vinyls, but a bit more dynamic and certainly cleaner. If you have a really clean recording, either medium is fine.

[@thomasedward2231]

I have some Cars records that just amazing

[@JamesT65]

Buy a vintage reel to reel and record the modern vinyl or cd to reel tape and it will sound better.

[@SpeakerBuilder]

@@JamesT65 I have old reel to reel recordings of live broadcasts from Boston, like BB King at Pauls Mall, their last night before closing, priceless.

[@billybassman21]

There are a lot of digital masters from the 80s that sound amazing, the problem is the compression.

[@SpeakerBuilder]

@@billybassman21 The mastering of the original recordings from the 80's were not over-compressed generally, so if you are hearing that, then the digital remastering engineer did that. The problem I hear with CD versions of old recordings is not compression but EQ. In several cases the clarity is much greater in the high end, but the bass has not been enhanced to compensate, and was not very prominent to begin with, so the result is a very out of balance mix that just sounds terrible. I am looking into a preamp with bass and treble control so that I can easily compensate for some of these mistakes.

[@hirambright9357]

What I found is that a vinyl record sounds great if I use a great and relatively expensive sound system. CDs on the other hand will give you a clear sound with any device.

[@afistfulofpimples1745]

Rubbish

[@brentfisher902]

I agree with you on that one. Digital made it a lot easier to playback high quality recordings...it's just the record companies prefer quantity over quality.

[@1jhnpennington]

Superb as usual. Makes me happy watching your videos. Take care.

[@liquidamber]

soooo right...thanks Paul...super THANKS

[@justanotherguyfromthenorth5791]

Just found your channel a week or so ago. I love your enthusiasm and no nonsense approach. Keep up the love of the sound.

[@Paulmcgowanpsaudio]

Thanks! And welcome.

[@BrianBoniMakes]

Hi Paul, Here’s something you’re not considering. In the 80s I was working in the industrial testing equipment industry, we supplied to the very largest manufactures and testing labs and I engineered systems and worked calibrating instruments. At that time the record industry was a major customer of the companies who made the vinyl and they paid top dollar for first quality materials, by the train car load. The companies who made the raw materials made and gave the best materials to the largest customers who would pay the most which was for records, they had testing and labs at each stage of production. There’s just no way that the dribble of record vinyl being made today get this treatment. I was also in the record pressing plants, there was networks of them and they all ran labs of their own, the new shipments of vinyl were tested before the containers were unloaded and if it was off for some reason it went back. The people who ran these plants were highly educated and very skilled as at this point the industry was over fifty years old. This network is gone and the people retired, you just don’t open up a record plant and make the same quality that people who have been doing it for fifty years did. Today the vinyl industry is busy making siding and window frames with record vinyl being way down the list if it is on the list at all, the biggest suppliers aren’t fighting for the business anymore. Let’s face it records are dead, they had a great run but all you’re spinning today is nostalgia. You talk about CD mastering for loudness but you didn’t mention that mastering was really introduced to keep the needle in the record groove and to compensate how that groove changes from the lead in to lead out. I’ll never forget when I got my first direct to disk copy of the 1812 Overture and saw how the groove spacing was manually adjusted to keep the cannon bursts from entering the adjacent grooves, this started me asking question about mastering and it was then that I found about all the limits placed on records. Are we not romanticizing the faults of records and calming limitations as features?

[@mitchelvalentino1569]

Brian Boni This is one of the most informative and interesting comments I’ve read on KZbin. Thank you for sharing!

[@Laurensnl]

Interesting but I do not agree that today we can't have the same quality. I think it's the complete opposite. With modern day technology we are able to achieve much higher quality anywhere. Machines, sensor and computers can accomplish much more with much less. Even 50 years of experience can easily be replaced by proper technology..

[@BrianBoniMakes]

@@Laurensnl Yes we are able to produce better everything but we are in much more cost conscious times so the reality is modern manufacturing methods are being used to keep the cost down and not raise the quality.

[@user-ec2jr6pv1s]

@@mitchelvalentino1569 love english yt for such educative comments. Russian yt is just hate and politics, everyone hates everybody and government with little pedo czar.

[@sashas3362]

Yeah that explanation reminds me of how they say we can't put a man back on the Moon now because there is so much engineering and manufacturing knowledge which nobody bothered to put in writing that got lost when people died and such. They can't make Apollo rockets anymore. It became a lost art and only in the past few years did they figure out how to create comparable rocket engines again. But it remains to be seen whether they can put a man back on the Moon with these newer rockets.

[@elaines5412]

I agree with James from Atlanta . Thanks for the help.

[@pablomargaretic]

Swingin´... What a explanation for this topic!!! Thanks Paul

[@andershammer9307]

If you want good vinyl you have to buy Mobile Fidelity or Analogue Productions re-issues. The regular vinyl you find a stores like Target are mostly just copies on CDs on Vinyl.

[@csilt]

I'm glad you mentioned Daft Punk at the end because I have their albums Discovery and Random Access Memories and they both sound phenomenal on vinyl. They sound so much better than most modern vinyl.

[@csilt]

@@nooneinpart You should read this.. www.soundonsound.com/people/recording-random-access-memories-daft-punk

[@tristanawild380]

I love Discovery, have it on vinyl (and DVD, and digital files..)- it’s one of my favorite albums- but as a french house record, the sound of it definitely comes from compression that isn’t at all transparent. It pumps- but as a deliberate aesthetic choice. Not sure it’s really the best example of a very dynamic/unprocessed sound. As a funk record, RAMs is a different beast entirely.

[@kbtube8125]

yes. over compression as an effect. super annoying.

[@tristanawild380]

KBtube disagree! When used with taste and deliberation, over-compression can make something sound huge. I especially love slamming something into a compressor, and either dialing it back in parallel or using a transient-shaper thereafter to restore dynamics to the sound. Obviously not something you should do to a classical recording or acoustic jazz track, but in contexts like dance music or metal it can be a fantastic way of adding intensity. Where I dislike over-compression is in contexts where it’s murdering dynamic material without a deliberate artistic reason.

[@elsongs]

Because they were Doin' It Right.

[@cadmiral3d146]

So true... I love your explanation. Thank you.

[@JammingWave]

Awesome job Paul, thank you

[@TheMirolab]

Agree Paul!!….. If you record a modern LP to your computer and look at the waveform, you can see that many record companies use the same heavily limited digital master that they used to make the CD. Go to the Dynamic Range Database (dr.loudness-war.info) & look up your favorite recordings. Most new records are in the 5-7 dB range, but music from the 70s-80s (rock, pop, jazz) will have a range of 12-16 dB. That's just not allowed today. SOME new artists will press their LPs with more dynamic range than the CD counterpart. Just one example is Tame Impala's Currents LP. the CD has a DR=5 and the LP has a DR=9. I borrowed the CD first, and then purchased the LP when I found out it had a higher DR. The LP sounds better, in this case.

[@EddieJazzFan]

The loudness wars have also made FM radio very poor sounding.

[@Mike-fi5se]

That's why my pirate station doesn't use any compression and I run the signal through a tube preamplifier. Preserving the sound is more important to my listeners.

[@Richard-bq3ni]

@@Mike-fi5se A pirate radio? You naughty boy 😁 When I was young and still lived with my parents I had a pirate station as well. The signal was send from my mix panel trough an mpx filter to the stereo encoder. No compressor/limiter whatsoever. Just watch the VU meters to prevent over modulation. FM stereo can sound fantastic. But there is no radio station I know with good sound. All compressed like hell.

[@Uoldd]

oh yes.

[@nitedreamer23]

Thanks, Jim Boeheim, for your sage audio advice.

[@dell177]

A few days ago you recommended a recording so I looked it up and played it on Amazon, not the best service but a good way to preview a track. The music was not to my liking but i did appreciate the quality of the recording. That track was laid down by someone who cared what it sounded like and that is not common these days. The popular trend is to compress and equalize a track till your ears bleed. I have tracks that were recorded in the 70's that someone took care with and although they are not as pristine and modern tracks they sound like music without the add ons that are all to popular today.

[@themarcinmm4840]

Oh, I hate the loudness war. I mean, I hate it. I’m so happy I got some old vinyls from my parents. And there’s eBay :) But even if I play a CD from 1990, my ears relax :)

[@NickP333]

theMarcinMM I mean this very respectfully, but the plural of vinyl is vinyl, not vinyls. Can’t forget Discogs in addition to eBay. Discogs is wonderful, if for nothing else cataloging your collection. Not to mention, they’ve got pretty much every version of every album ever made listed. I’m sure you’re most likely very familiar with Discogs though... Enjoy your weekend! 🎵🔊👍

[@themarcinmm4840]

Nick Pantazi Thanks. You’re right, I stand corrected :) And Discogs is a really nice place. One of the best ways to still be able to buy some real music (with all due respect to the new-age stuff, it’s a matter of taste, but as soon as I ripped a CD track maybe 15 or 20 years ago and took a look at the waveform...) Anyways, I’ve been recently looking for one of those vintage brass-horn gramophones. My grandmother used to have a few shellac records from the early 1930s or so. Unfortunately, I tried to look for them after she passed away a few years ago and I couldn’t find them :( But we’ll see. Enjoy your weekend, too!

[@venturarodriguezvallejo9777]

I hate "loudness wars", too. As I hate, and hated, the "musical" clicks, clocks, plicks, plocks, grrrs, hisses and other delicatessen vinyl reserves, and had reserved, for every music lover. Thank God, vinyl is back for making our lives even happier than they already were.

[@TheGogeta222]

Oh yes I've got some LP's from an Japanese audiophile they are 40+ years old and I think they are like new if you search for quality search in Japan

[@changkwangoh]

theMarcinMM keep on using “vinyls,” pop. It’s never going away. It could very well be wrong, but its acceptable nowadays.

[@MrNicknayme]

Here’s why: Most vinyls have music that is mastered for CD and streaming, but adapted to vinyl. So you get the CD quality minus some lows, essentially.

[@MrMahn21]

Records, they're called records

[@kadekbalian]

All the (electronic music) record labels I know commission separate masters for vinyl and digital releases

[@joey1127]

@@kadekbalian that's an exception. Thus why they sound so good. In general, the mass top-40 Indi-Pop out there today...sound quality is not the goal so the LP is really an after though, not the end result. Analog is expensive from inception, you need engineers that know what they are doing from the get go. Most are either dead now, or running privet remaster labels like Mo-Fi or Analog Productions.

[@awookieandagerman]

Which is why my Muse - Drones record has really shoddy bass on my favorite track.

[@elsongs]

@@MrMahn21 You can easily tell a person's age when they use the term "vinyls" vs. 'records" LOL.

[@stephendacey4916]

I've finally replaced all my 180grm reissues with original A1/B1 70's recordings, I now enjoy the music.

[@Antoon55]

Great stuff Paul!

[@vcp93]

So in a nutshell, it's the "content" that's the problem, not the "media". Pick up one of those Blue Note Tone Poet series or their 80th Anniversary LPs. They sound amazing. There are many, many other examples, but the point is to start with quality content and your 75% the way there. Cheers! 👽🖖"Na-nu"

[@jamiehowarth541]

The digital versions of the Tone Poet also sound excellent. Joe Harley's is good.

[@juliocesarpereira4325]

Cold and acurate definition: both vinyl records and CDs are made to store recordings. Nothing of that pointless fight to name which one's better. I listen to both and enjoy them equally.

[@2CelebrateMusic]

Very important to know... 👈 Thx for bringing it on point ! (promptly shared on my 2 FB groups)

[@angharaddenby3389]

Much of the issue is because these days many albums are RECORDED digitally and not onto tape as was previously the norm. Therefore, new vinyl cannot help but sound digital because that is how they were recorded in the first place.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

The first time i clearly heard that difference was when i compared my "Tource De France" 12' vinyls from 1983 and the later re-issue from the late 90s. I was horrified at the thin sound of the re-issue. And many many Techno & Trance 12' Vinyl records are also suffering from that issue. Even some early digitally recorded Vinyls like the Jean Michel Jarre Album "Magnetic Fields" sounded really awefull. As if they really just etched a CD into the Vinyl master groove.

[@madyogi6164]

Can confirm the JMJ as well. Found Chronologie LP reissue, I was so happy holding it but surprised how (wish to not say) bad it was. I remembered it much better sounding on my MC back from the 90s... old "thin" LPs from the 70-80s (120 grams or thinner) sounded better. than 180 nowady bricks. Rearly you can find 180g release that is as good as the old one. I usually try looking well known production/distribution studios like /RCA/Atlantic/Polydor/Electra/Epic/Virgin/Mute/4AD/ etc. JMJ was Dreyfus which don't exist any more. I guess that's the story of non-existing studios. Reissuer's can't repeat the good stuff or go for easy money...

[@bradhardisty1652]

Excellent truth there.

[@unadomandaperte]

Avoid any pressings after the 90's. No one is keeping loyal to recording techniques of the yesteryears anymore.

[@azzajohnson2123]

Vorrei imparare l'italiano knowledge is being lost to the generation that’s all about making money and not putting time into quality.

[@dee.8784]

Can’t lie this is kinda true! I recently listen to for example All Eyez on Me by 2Pac (1996) and I’m listening and the sound quality is like idk more warmth to it then I listened to Good Kid MADD city by Kendrick Lamar (2012) and it sounds so digital even on vinyl

[@Youtube.Commen-tater]

Zappa records still uses original master tapes.

[@archivestereo]

You are correct as it’s all in the recording. Many years ago I recorded a favorite full analog lp onto recordable audio cd: a nice, expensive purpose built audio CD recorder for a stereo system. Long story short, it captured the essence of the analog recording. Good sources in, good sources out!

[@reziiwastaken]

I am glad I found your channel.

[@1215Runnymede]

Our friend Doug Sax (Founder of The Mastering Lab) said it best: “Stop Digital Madness!” About now, he and Arnie are in Arnie’s listening room enjoying Direct to Disc releases from Sheffied.

[@tjroelsma]

The first CD's actually didn't sound that bad. The Philips Red Book very precisely documented how music should be transferred to CD. Yes, vinyl lovers argued that you lost part of the "warmth" of vinyl records with the CD, but the sound was very dynamic, partly because CD's had way more headroom than vinyl. Cue the "loudness wars", when every bit of dynamic was compressed out of existance and that changed, making the difference between vinyl and CD much larger. But now vinyl has been subjected to the same treatment, making even the "good old" vinyl records sound awful.

[@jamiehowarth541]

That's so not Doug after 1990. He pulled a real fast one on Fremer at the 2014 (iirc) AES by playing some Sheffield that sounded great, then announced he would play something from the Pantera Box Set he had recently finished, and compared it to the original CD by a mastering engineer he named but I'd rather not. Go look it up. So he plays the CD and it's compressed and limited and bright and commercial and meh. Then he plays the vinyl and it ROARED. Big warm, huge sound, Big round of applause from the predominantly pro-vinyl side. Then he steps to the mic and announces "That was a cut I did from a 192kHz/24bit file from the Warner LIbrary." Air comes out of the balloon. "but but doug you used your special EQ and limiting special sauce etc to make it sound so great" "Nah, the kid who mixed it did a good job, I tried a few things but I couldn't beat it so I cut it flat". And Mikey looked extremely pained, Bob Ludwig looked bemused. Classic Doug being Doug, disruptive, iconoclastic and always right.

[@bassmandudge]

This is so utterly true... I'm 53 my daughter is 16. Each payday we get a classic album and a modern album... floyd Wish you were here vs Sam Fender......Steely Dan Aja vs Wombats .. it is clear that mixing and mastering from the days when vinyl was the main media is miles ahead of modern production. Personally I blame a lot of it on home recording..artists who think they can produce their own albums not realising what a black art mastering really is...understanding instrument separation and soundstaging... I am a fan of all of the above bands but some of the sound quality on the newer artists is truly dreadful. I have a pretty good system and I bought The Resistance by Muse on the weekend but it was soooo bass heavy and muddy in the midrange that it was almost unlistenable... and I played bass in a Muse tribute for 5 years so I know their stuff...it was so disappointing as I really thought their huge orchestral pieces would blow my mind on vinyl.... whereas Aja...well that really is special on my system..... I guess the current crop of mixers..sound engineers and producers need to go back and listen and learn from those that really knew their stuff.

[@joey1127]

Right, because you needed engineers that understood the equipment and how to get proper fidelity without over saturation. Today, every time they show some ghetto gangster in the studio, the VU's are ALWAYS pegging...cause it looks cool, yo! Recording went to hell when you could use your iPhone and Laptop to literally make an album in your bedroom...and thanks to YouTub, everyone can make an album...

[@innercores1266]

AJA is my favorite Steely Dan album.

[@brentfisher902]

@@joey1127 They need to get a new hipster trend to release albums on LPC-10 2,400 bits per second compressed.

[@sidecarcn]

It depends. Now at Radio Netherlands our transcription service until 1999 were sending out recordings on open reel tape, cassette, CD and LP. But each of the formats that were distributed all had different masters made for duplication. By the late 80s we had ended using 2, 4 or 8 track tape for sessions and moved to digital. After we had the digital studio master, 4 different masters were made for each of the formats using a different EQ. This was actually very expensive to do as none of the recordings we made were sold and provided free of charge to different broadcast stations. The tape versions were EQ in house, but the CD, cassette and LP versions were done by Phonogram. Some of our early transcription LPs in the 50s and 60s and well into the 70s. Had 2 LP versions. One mono for MV stations (AM radio) and one stereo for FM stations. These also had a different EQ.

[@ge3466]

Thanks. I thought I was missing out on something with the vinyl craze. As a senior I have been through 8tracks, records, cassettes, CD's, mp3's, and invested in them all. Now I just stream Qobuz High Res on my Bluesound node and try to make it sound as good as it can. And these days it can sound pretty damn good. I am exploring music I never could before and believe it or not the price is right and I don't have a whole wall of media in my house either. I am betting that streaming digital will sound even better as time passes. For my old bones this will be good enough.....

[@edwardmenice8604]

I have a couple of rolling stones vinyl albumns that are direct stream digital recordings and I think they sound great. Doesn't matter what the medium is. The mastering makes the difference.

[@paulanderson79]

Completely agree. I always found early CD masters far too hot. Dynamics were crushed. Not a fault of the medium but poor mastering technique.

[@angusvanhalen2886]

One thing I’ve noticed about modern LPs...quality control of the actual vinyl discs SUCK. I have gotten so many many records that are warped, with surface scratches right out of the shrink. I’ve gotten to the point where I only buy used records I can personally inspect, or have some inspect it for me on Discogs. I’ve been collecting LPs for 40yrs, and warping has always been a concern with vinyl records, but never used to get brand new, warped records. It sucks

[@thegrimyeaper]

And the holes in the middle. It's like they're having a contest to see how small they can get them.

[@angusvanhalen2886]

thegrimyeaper yes!!! I have a double LP and one record is so tight on the spindle, I can lift up my rega deck without it coming off

[@brianmoore581]

Yep, the worst thing that ever happened to vinyl is when the hipsters jumped on board and made it somewhat popular again. What used to be a specialty product made by people who cared about quality is now a trendy mass market piece of crap, as sloppy as the hipsters who buy it.

[@angusvanhalen2886]

Brian Moore yep and drive prices to sometimes ridiculous amounts

[@jimmiesmith5811]

@@angusvanhalen2886 LPs cost more than CDs now in some places on my way home i always stop in the record shop to browse through the new and used section and the prices are so high i could walk out 5 used album's for the price of 1 new copy and that 180 gram vinyl is just gimmick to jack up the price

[@GlitchyfrogMusic]

Super informational!

[@gerryjamesedwards1227]

So glad you referenced Daft Punk's dedication to quality audio. I think much of the crap comes down to the business side of the record industry, the remastered version of Dark Side Of The Moon is a case in point. Talented guys spent a long time in the stdio going through the old mixes, but somehow what got released was just not up to snuff. I heard much of that was down to one marketing executive standing over the mastering engineer and dictating what he thought the punters wanted to hear.

[@ThinkingBetter]

Perhaps those doing the studio work are from the smart phone era where the “reference speakers” are the standard white iPhone earbuds. Somehow, younger people don’t expect much with cheap earbuds and tiny Bluetooth speakers; and I suspect it’s due to the trend of how “smaller is better” has made the average audio worse.

[@robertsteich7362]

ThinkingBetter “loudness wars” have been ramping up since the early 90s.

[@brainache555]

Robert Steich 80s

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@brainache555 Well, the music industry has messed up dynamic range with different arguments through history. It's particularly sad when otherwise great music gets optimized towards playback on junk audio gear. When we have systems and standards that can play with >=96dB dynamic range and end up with a tiny fraction of it, it's a great bummer. My favorite music is not a constant stream of near clipping level sounds drowning the fine details. Such music production is like making a zombie horror movie with the only theme of people getting killed constantly.

[@carlhilton4747]

Pass down your old, unused gear to young people. You will be amused at the reaction you get when they actually hear what their favorite music is supposed to sound like. LoFi is pretty much the norm these days; compressed, distorted recordings and trendy equipment of indifferent quality. The kids don't know any better.

[@0utcastAussie]

@@carlhilton4747 This kind of happened to me. I had an industrial accident in the early 80's and got a pretty decent payout. So I went and bought one of those new fangled CD thingies next to no-one had. It cost £500 just for the player. My next door neighbour heard I'd bought one and wanted to listen. He WASN'T impressed. I thought "cocky *unt". HE said come round and have a listen to the same track on his system. It was a B & O Beosystem and I was blown away. Music within music. I asked him how the heck he could afford that system and he said it was second hand but still hella expensive. I said it's definitely worth it !

[@PeterCamberwick]

"Why does new vinyl sound digital?" ... er, because they are.

[@hespassed859]

My name is Jeff

[@chipsnmydip]

The workflow for mastering an album has also changed dramatically, and very few records, even those recorded to tape, are actually mastered analog and cut from tape. Even if it isn't necessary to master the album to digital, most modern lathes cutting use a digital delay in order to provide lookahead so they don't skip. My understanding is that to do a true AAA record you need an additional tape to provide the lookahead. A friend recently recorded an album on 2" 24 track tape, and mixed it down to 1/2" 2 track. Then, at the mastering studio it was played off the tape machine, eq'd and compressed, and finally recorded digitally at 24 bit 96khz. The vinyl cutting then used the 24 bit transfer. This is a more hifi process than most.

[@friedmule5403]

Paul, it's fairly easy to explain why. It's all about speed of production. 1) You can record without having to use time on microphone placement, optimizing dynamic and so on. 2) When the time comes to make the editing, you can simply run everything trough a normalize and hit exactly 0dB 3) And lastly, smaller files do take less time and space to distribute.

[@billbones1000]

Yup, couldn't agree more. The upshot is there are hundreds of thousands of amazing used LPs from the 60s,70s and 80s that can be had for 5$ a piece.

[@adamgh0]

Daft Punk's Random Access Memories was mastered for each format. I have it on CD and vinyl and they sound slightly different from each other.

[@bobshoe8426]

not surprising considering the themes of the album...

[@m1ke1981]

Which was probably recorded digitally anyways. If it was done on analogue tape to vinyl, then we can talk.

[@camerontarot]

nice vid- also you mentioned wine as I was thinking about having a glass. so I think I shall. cheers!

[@PeterRichardsandYoureNot]

So interested in this as im an 80s child but, man, The delivery pace is glacial.

[@AndyP126]

The digital source is not the issue. Digital masters are great. It’s the ******* loudness wars. Vinyl records are not immune to the loudness wars, the way some people claim. Analog mastering is. But analog mastering has it’s own set of issues. The solution is to continue to use digital masters but stop dynamically compressing the music.

[@jpvoodoo5522]

Yes. I contend that by increasing the bit depth, the dynamic range lost by digital could be so small as to be imperceptible to human hearing if the industry wants to write the software formats and design the DACs to do it.. CDs were 16 bit. That is 65535 possible amplitude values with PCM. Why not a Gigabit format? The sky is the limit, it's only storage. Still. the analog purists will claim they can hear the difference. Compression abuse did more to kill dynamic range than the format did. The source is crap and then you mutilate it and blame the format.

[@AndyP126]

@@jpvoodoo5522 16 bit is not the number of amplitude values. It's the BIT DEPTH. The BIT DEPTH is the difference between the quietest and loudest pieces of a piece of music. Most music doesn't even use 8 bits of depth, especially modern compressed music. If you want to have some fun, convert a 16-bit FLAC to 8-bit and play it. What you'll hear is pretty much the same song with hiss in the background, because the noise floor goes up. I think the problem we have is that people don't really understand how digital music works. What bit depth is, and what sample rate is. 16 bits of depth, gives us 96 dB of dynamic range. And the sample rate of a CD is 44.1 Khz. The Nyquist Theorem states that in order to adequately reproduce a signal it should be periodically sampled at a rate that is 2X the highest frequency you wish to record. Human hearing runs from 20 Hz to 20 Khz. Some exceptionally gifted people can hear as high as 22 KHz. So, if we double 22 KHz to 44 KHz, then 44.1 KHz encompasses a perfect sampling of the entire range of human hearing, which is what the CD has.

[@jpvoodoo5522]

@@AndyP126 , Yes I was ignoring the whole discussion of Nyquist and sampling. That is another issue. When I spoke about the number of amplitude values, I was referring to file formats and their relationship to bit depth. The greater the bit depth, the greater the NUMBER of possible amplitude values that can be used to represent the 96 dB range. Most people don't understand that it was the continuous nature of analog recording media that allowed it to represent the continuous changes in amplitude values. Think of amplitude as vertical resolution in pictures and sampling rate as horizontal resolution. We apparently can't improve horizontal resolution beyond 44,1 khz. But we could represent the amplitude precisely enough over that 96 dB range by increasing the bit depth so that the differences in amplitude don't matter. There is an awesome book that discusses this in depth too. This stuff excites me. You can download the chapters that interest you for free. They have code samples for the math behind DSP. This is useful not just in audio, but anywhere a digital signal needs to be represented. Networking, Telecom, Medical Imaging, etc. www.dspguide.com/ "The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing"

[@AndyP126]

JP Voodoo a file format is just a container to store bit depth and sampling rate. All lossless file formats will sound the same.

[@jpvoodoo5522]

@@AndyP126, Any sort of digital encoding loses information to some degree. If you are talking about "lossless" from the standpoint of whether or not conversion or compression loses the original data. then it only matters if the original recording is high quality to begin with. If you have ever played around with with writing bits directly to a sound file, it really opens your mind to the possibilities. The music industry has only scratched the surface of the quality possible.

[@nunofernandes4501]

You need a red MADA hat. Make Audio Dynamic Again!

[@nesNYC]

Oh! And as for the loudness issue that's because some studios use compressor software and will "normalize" the track to bring it as high as 0db to maintain a constant volume that's full but will sometime distort lower frequencies. Mastering is an artform all unto itself and if you grew up in the digital era you know of no other way for things to sound. Those of us the were raised on analog should know and understand the differences.

[@chinmeysway]

sometimes recordings are being done with software (digital) alongside tape (analog). i suppose it’s just really hard to know which groups/ artists are doing this and if the vinyl is cut from the analog side of things (which digital is compared with often - though it’s also about real outboard gear vs plug ins etc etc)

[@cb2000a]

If you want to hear really good vinyl you have to track down some Sheffield Labs recordings.

[@joey1127]

@nvdirtbiker AMEN to Mo-Fi. They are still around and still make outstanding pressings. both 33.3 and 45 RPM.

[@alzamonart]

I’ve got Dave Grusin’s “Discovered Again”. Now *that’s* what I expect a vinyl record to sound like. I know I’m probably setting the bar too high.

[@MrPeeBeeDeeBee]

The contemporary sad reality is that analogue LPs with an at best dynamic range of around 60 to 70db often sound more dynamic and better that a CD which has a potential dynamic range of 100 to 105db.

[@Trance88]

This is the exact topic that has me on the fence of is it even worth getting new vinyl. The recording studios are just taking a single master and using them for both CD and vinyl. For vinyl, they're probably doing a couple small tweaks around the edges, often times using extra compression and even rolling off high frequencies to prevent sibilance (fuzzy "S" sounds). This is why I very rarely buy brand new recordings on vinyl. I usually only buy used, pre-1990 albums on vinyl.

[@pault151]

I think he is incorrect about the comment that the car tuner was looking for strong signals. The strength of the FM signal being received has absolutely nothing to do with how much it's being modulated at that point. The FM sound volume depends on the amount of frequency modulation, not the strength of the signal. The tuner only looks for a strong carrier, not music that is loud. The person who controls which station gets played, however, may stop at the louder one.

[@rods6405]

Correctamundo Paul!

[@LeonEvans_Guyver1]

I think you missed the most important issue. Everything is recorded today on a DAW. The entire signal chain is digital, the entire recording process is digital on a digital workstation and recorded to Hard Drives. There is no analog anymore. So the actual recording IS digital. when you write that to vinyl, you are simply writing a digital recoding to a vinyl medium. You essentially have a CD written to Vinyl.

[@hudsonrobert49]

100% Agree.

[@legalize.brokkoli]

"The entire signal chain is digital" Wrong.

[@giuseppenovella]

Well, i think there’s a lot of confusion...actually a lot of 80/90s music was recorded on Digital Machines ( DASH tapes or DAT, later HD). They where digital, stored a series of zeroes and ones before the actual printing. What’s wtong It’s not the “digital recording”or digital mixing...the DIGITAL CLIPPING is the worst enemy of today’s music. Digital clipping is a common practice in mastering since late 90s, when the loudness war started. Everyone want to sound louder than the others, so mastering engineer are pushed to hard limit and clip every single song to reach the loudest result possible ( as today there are songs wich are tied to -5Lufs or higher with no dynamics at all...that’s fool!). I’m a sound engineer: trust me, music sounds a lot better when loudness isn’t squashing its life

[@RedPee2000]

Thanks!

[@navrasicsi]

I don't think digital recording can be blamed for the bad sounding albums. In my opinion sound quality is lost at a later stage of the music production like mixing and/or mastering most probably due to applying to much compression. Digital audio evolved to a level when human ear cannot differentiate anymore between good digital and good analgue devices. If digital audio is used by sound engineers and producers properly or not, it's another question. But I am pretty sure they would produce the same sh*t with analogue devices as well. :)

[@RebMordechaiReviews]

My first CD-Player and entry into teh world of CD HIFI was when I purchased the Philips CD-104 back in 1984. In direct comparisons with my friend's Linn Sondek LP12 with Basik LVX arm and AT-OC5 cartridge, played on the same Naim amp and Monitor Audio speakers, it was very much apparent that the same album played on the 104, sounded around 25% less volume.The sound was harsh, voices were thin and all the depth was missing. I soon exchanged the 104 and upgraded to the Mission PCM 7000 which was a great improvement with improved volume and fuller sound. The voices were fleshed out with better presentation of low frequencies. However, instruments on vinyl still sounded much more realistic and this was from my CD style Hitachi Direct Drive turntable with front draw. In 1986 I got rid of my Mission and sold off ALL my CDs. My colleagues at work though I was totally crazy! I bought an Lp12 with Ittok arm and AT OC9 cartridge and never looked back. I suppose I was the first of the flat earthers Vinyl cultist. Then I noticed something peculiar with the new releases of albums coming out in the late 1980s. The vinyl records started to sound overblown and stuffy whereas the CD versions were now playing back at higher volumes. I understood this to mean that the master recording was now being customised for CD format. You could tell a record produced pre-1985 and post 1985. So began my hobby of searching out for 1970s vinyl recordings. I particularly enjoyed the FFRR Decca classical recordings. it felt like you were actually in the concert hall amongst the musicians and could pick out the physical position of every single instrument on stage. despiteteh fact that CD did improve in teh late 1980s, the same recordings on CD format remained totally flat with no depth of field. Analogue somehow captures this information.

[@vladg5216]

Modern vinyl is just bad quality. 80% of the discs I buy have at least one major defect - warp, off-center, clunking, scratches, etc. About digital mastering, of course I prefer all analogue pressings, but I will say one controversial thing - even records that were mastered digitally and then pressed to vinyl, usually sound better than their CD counterparts. Yes, they still sound a bit digital. But there is much less "digititis" because at the end of the day vinyl is a mechanical medium and an "interpretive" medium - meaning the analogue equipment adds a layer of interpretation to the signal. If you get a different cartridge, turntable, tonearm, phono preamp, etc, it will present the music to you slightly differently. So, yes, analog masters are better than digital masters, but even with digital masters, you can fine-tune the playback by using different equipment and get it to sound a bit more pleasant and natural. You won't get rid of all of the digititis, but you will make it a lot more bearable. You can't really do that with CD's most of the time. ANd when you can, it's because the particular DAC you are using is doing the same thing as a good phono cartridge does - it adds euphonic qualities to the sound. Most good DACS that make CD's sound passable have analogue output stages with tubes. So, I don't see why so many people single out vinyl lovers as being stupid because they are listening to a digital master. The analogue output stage in your favorite CD player is doing the same thing that my turntable, cartridge, and pre-amp are doing. They are interpreting the signal in a pleasant way. For more, read this - www.decware.com/paper20.htm

[@fookingsog]

...and interestingly enough, I remember when CD's first came out and on the back of the carton/case, it would indicate DDD, DAD, or AAD which was how it was recorded, mixed & mastered, Analog or Digital for each stage. You could definitely tell a difference!!!😁👍🏻

[@stephensmith3111]

"Same as it was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was." -- Talking Heads Seek thee out and support the good guys of that 20%. This actually would beat Theodore Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crap."

[@NickP333]

Vlad G Very well said, and thank you for saying it.

[@friedmule5403]

I clearly understand the desire to get the ultimate audio experience and do even understand the amazing in the "hunt" for the next that can kick the sound a notch up. But I do simply not understand those who own a $10,000+ turntable and then buy new LP's. It's like buying PS Audio gear and then connect it to two dollar store speakers. :-)

[@ericmc6482]

I add to the discussion that all parts of audio systems are filters, but not filters in the usual form, ie RC, LC, RLC etc. Electronic stages and connecting cables are energy conduit stages, with each stage, each conductor, each dielectric and each component modifying the energy transfer rate by adding and deleting quantum current noises and according to the materials used in such stages. This quantum noise has many dependencies and causes many dependencies and is the highly variable 'signature' we hear in equipment items and cables AND system power (energy) source. To this end I have in development energy noise filter materials and forms that can be readily applied at strategic points in systems, preferably beginning at the system energy inlet (AC cable) and final energy outlet (speakers), next are energy handovers (connecting cables at entries and exits) and then within electronic equipment in strategic locations. Such 'bounding' of complete system and stages causes a 'synchronicity' in the system with overall system signature strongly according to the bounding material. For example if you were to completely cable a system with say Romex from wall socket to speaker terminals (and internally) and including interconnects you will have a system with overiding Romex signature because Romex synchronicity coupling dominates/ filters or reclocks one mode of energy transfer timing scatter.....the new system timing scatter will be one 'filtering' signature (system in unison) instead of a several mutually interacting signatures (typical crapshoot). Back to vinyl, with my fully treated system I have quite stunning 3d clarity and separation and natural attack/decay giving unique detail and precision and warmth and realism (yes all at the same time) that I can then modify actually 'renoise' at will. For example I can make my dac sound like vinyl and variable according to the donor record label/formulation/pressing, shellac is another variable modifier. This observation confirms preferences for particular vinyl labels and pressings. Which do I prefer ?..... I prefer my clean sound that indeed has no subjective current noise signature at all (unlike the Romex example), the two vinyl sounds are quite strongly coloured and distinctly different, one (quality 60s LP) diminishes low bass and adds a higher up bass boom/emphasis and the other vinyl (pop 80s 45) adds mids emphasis/subjective distortion. So systems are totally interactive and strongly dependent on the source sound, indeed transparent quiet good systems are critically dependant on the source of the source sound itself, this also goes for gold metalised CDs and deep red audio CDR sound different to standard CD. Next lecture, the subjective effects of conductor and cable directional properties.......

[@andrewhethmon3219]

As a person who’s recently dove deeper into HI-Fi It’s difficult to pick out the many important distinctions with the topic as a whole but especially with vinyl. I love the medium for so many reasons but I’m not looking to buy into trends for trends sake. I want quality in every area of my life and as a result most of the things in my house, from Hi-Fi gear to furniture to the house itself are older and time tested. It’s something I don’t mind putting time a research into and resources like this channel are invaluable. MY QUESTION IS: 1. What about reissues of albums recorded in during the analog era? I’ve got a lot of old vinyl and they tend to be my favorites but there are some albums that are hard to find in good condition or too expensive so I buy new reissues. 2. What can I do when looking to buy an album to know if it was appropriately mastered for vinyl?

[@taintedtannis]

I guess I must be a lucky one. Because the new vinyl I own is actually quality recordings. Some of them are re-releases of albums that were already out, but I digress. One of the new artists that I own albums of is Huntress. I was fortunate enough to meet Jill Janus before she passed away, not only that to be able to get her autograph on her 2nd album, Starbound Beast. I own both the CD and Record and the record definitely sounds much better than the CD. Of course, I also believe what type of stereo and speakers plays a difference in sound quality of the records, be they old or new. My system is a 1964 GE "short" model Console Stereo with 2 GE 1950's "Extended Range" speakers for external speakers. Outside of putting new sound deadening material in the speaker chambers and adding new Gold plated plugs and speaker wires to the 2 GE Extended Range speakers and changing needles on the record player, that's all I've done to it since I've owned it. I've had it since 2014 and I got it from the original owners who purchased it in 1964. After the upgrades I've done, the clarity and pureness of sound rivals that of Bose systems in my humble opinion.

[@markmalasics8413]

Your video description is missing two words: "Why does new vinyl sound digital TO ME?"

[@ChrisStoneinator]

It's not though, because it's not subjective. It IS a digital recording

[@gojdartamas34]

Because its digital, analogue master rare🤪

[@phillipallen5564]

some new ones are mixed really good

[@mikaelhauk]

Wanted to add a comment here about streaming normalization. All major streaming platforms (spotify etc.) normalize audio now, adjusting loud recordings down to a set value (around -12dbs I believe). The reason they are so loud to begin with is that the music is compressed like hell. This is especially true with rock and metal music. HOWEVER - If you play a highly compressed track and a more dynamic track back to back on the same streaming platform, the dynamic track will sound louder by comparison because of that normalization, and so many audio engineers have stopped pursuing loudness in favor of dynamics now.

[@bilguana11]

And for all these bad reasons, vinyl is trendy.

[@nickp1548]

It's a lucrative bandwagon made possible by gullible idiots.

[@johnnybravoski7048]

Nick P-Indeed, and it's becoming more and more difficult to find ANYTHING that isn't these days.

[@patthewoodboy]

no point in buying new vinyl when its been mastered in the digital domain.

[@infesticon]

Well..... It depends oh who masters the vinyl. In the uk you have a vinyl mastering enginear called porky who signs his stuff in the run out grove. His stuff always sounds great. The prodigy singles he mastered sound great and that's digitally recored stuff and digital instruments and samples.

[@RockLobster223]

There's very much a point in buying new vinyl, if all you have is a turntable! Otherwise you'd never be able to listen to any new music on it.

[@patthewoodboy]

@@RockLobster223 you saying after all this time you dont have a means of playing CD's , amazing

[@magnusbruce4051]

Disagree. The vinyl medium is more than just the sound of the music itself. The tactile nature of putting a record on the platter, cleaning it and dropping the needle is worth something in of itself. Simply opening itunes on my computer and pressing play doesn't force me to engage with the music in the same way as picking out a record. Additionally, the new records I buy are mostly from small bands and the amount of profit they personally make on vinyl versus CD or tapes (they are still a thing!) is pretty good, so getting the vinyl is more effectively supporting those artists. Plus when they're really low number limited edition runs, you're buying into something exclusive which I am an absolute sucker for. Some new vinyl has been mastered well, I think. There's a raw black metal album I got last year that had to be remastered twice before it was released because more care needed to be taken to get it to work with the analogue format. As a result, it sounds notably better than other albums of a similar style where as far as I can tell someone took the mp3 version of the album and applied the RIAA curve (and even then, I'm not certain they did that!).

[@KevinRodriguez-yv9hi]

MagnusBruce the main thing really is the file bit rate . As long as its not compressed below 320Kbps or lower ,It really does not matter whether its mastered in CD OR vinyl . 99.9% of people in the world cannot tell the difference between FLAC, WAV, and a 320KBPS file unless they have houndres of thousands of dollars invested in the proper equipment , wiring, sound acoustment treatment, tube amp, etc . But Vinyl has its value like you mentioned for its Aesthetic and nostalgic value .

[@markielinhart]

Hi Paul. Are we talking new pressings or remastered pressings such as the Blue Note reissues?

[@CoolDudeClem]

The ironic thing is, while all the dynamics have been crushed down to nothing when it comes to music, movies have so much of it that you can barely hear what's going on one minute, next thing you know you're have your eardrums ruptured! Never used to be like that, never had to constatly reach for my volume controll when watching a good film, and music back then was only compressed just enough to still have good dynamics, but never too much like it is today.

[@mathieufleury6787]

technicaly CDs dynamique rang is a way better than vinyl

[@SSJfraz]

The dynamic range 'potential' is considerably better. But because of high levels of dynamic compression applied to these digital recordings before they are released to the public who just want things to sound as loud as possible. Masters on old vinyl record are generally far more dynamic, despite it's dynamic limitations.

[@mathieufleury6787]

@@SSJfraz that makes sens. So this is not the support witch is better but he recording philosophy. the public isn't the same I guess. Don't you think that it depends a lot from the music style and the artist? Not every music is mastered in the purpose of hight spl.

[@grambo4436]

Make vinyl records great again. By bringing back dynamic, high fidelity and quality and just end this loudness war idiocy.

[@brentfisher902]

The loudness war lasted longer than it needed to because in 2006 many portable audio playback devices had volume output levels weaker than the hot water in my bathroom shower. As in you better hoped you swatted every last mosquito in an anechoic chamber or you would only be able to hear a 0 DBFS square wave through the speakers....

[@DaveFlash]

Yeah, loudness mastering seems to be the norm these days, tv stations do it, radio too, even streaming services seem to do it, KZbin even applies some form of loudness equalizing to each upload. Even this one.

[@echodelta9]

It's not just the loudness wars but the acoustical law of Pink Noise which fit nicely into the RIAA curve being violated and the modern sound of White Noise being "law" now. I heard years ago on The World Cafe John Couger explaining about a project he made, a roots rock album and he didn't like the sound of it. He played it on his iPod with an EQ setting called old records and liked it better than it sounded straight. He confronted the studio producer with this demo to say this is what I want my recording to sound like and the studio engineer said "we can't do that". This law of pink noise is something like this, 100 watts of bass matches 10 watts of midrange and 1 watt of treble matches the loudness of the whole mix. Now it's a level of equal amplitude (and increasing power to the treble) across the whole band, Orban Optimod everything now.

[@777jones]

I can literally hear the Pro Tools in the latest Beatles remix of Abbey Road in vinyl.. barf!!!!!!

[@bradhardisty1652]

Oh, that really sucks.

[@oo131193oo]

I just downloaded a Vinyl rip oft the original master publication/Version , just in case that i might want to listen to the original music instead of a "remastered" Version ...

[@jamiehowarth541]

There was so much manipulation done to this record. A well remastered fairly flat transfer of the original using the latest in tape playback techniques would have sounded great, regardless of format,

[@markhull1366]

Makes me wonder if those "artists" who don't care are the same ones who use autotune to sing. Maybe it's the real talent who cares.

[@laurentzduba1298]

Maybe Paul should ask Michael Fremer about Veruca Salt?🤔

[@vaughntonkin539]

autotune is shit, I hope none of this is pressed to vinyl, no benefit, it would sound just as bad as the CD copy

[@lincoln3x7]

He is 100 percent correct. I like collecting albums from 1985 and earlier when most recording studios were still analog. With new vinyl you have no way of knowing if they took mp3s or some other crappy format that was badly engineered to begin with and pressed a record from it. I would purchase new albums if they provided more information on how the material was sourced (sometimes they do). AND, he is correct that artists don't seem to care about how the music is recorded. But, I think the problem might also be that all those great recording engineers and producers from the 60s and 70s are gone. They came from an era of live sound and the electronics industry was competing to put out high quality sound equipment for the masses. Now a youtube video quality recording played on single speaker bluetooth device is the norm. So todays market for sound equipment is either crap or really high end... not as many companies build or market it anymore, so it cost more. Its worth it though. I still have a bunch of my old equipment I listen to... and I also enjoy the ease or searching up a youtube video of new song or playlist, but I know the difference of what it can sound like. Good video

[@jensdroessler3575]

It‘s not about analog vs. digital, it‘s about dynamics. When CDs came out people used it similarly to vinyl or they even used the enhanced dynamic range of the digital medium. Then in the 90s they „discovered“ that digital media can take ANY form of signal without any signs of „abuse“, something vinyl can‘t. Vinyl‘s „strengths“ is in fact vinyl‘s weakness. You HAVE to cut down the bass range to a certain level or the needle will jump out of the groove. You HAVE to trim down highs to a certain level or the cutting stylus will overheat and break. And you HAVE to have the songs dynamics right in the middle of the field to sound good. That means you can‘t have a dynamic range with very high levels AND low levels in the same recording, there isn‘t enough material on the disc to allow for the difference to be stored (unless you use a dynamic range extension system which you need to record the disc as well as play it back). You also can‘t have highly compressed dynamics with almost no difference between quieter parts and loudest parts. But that‘s what the loudness war lead to. As said, a digital medium won‘t have any trouble playing back such a low dynamic high volume signal just like it was recorded... vinyl will. That means you either need to do a master for all your target media that will work on vinyl (which is preferable instead of loudness „optimization“ anyway) or an additional specific master for vinyl... or you just use the loudness optimized and the vinyl will sound like crap. The thing is: Mastering for vinyl was kind of an art. Few today can do this really well. But every band wants their music to be put on vinyl as well again these days. The result: Many records with unfit mastering. And for the „vinyl is analogue and analogue sounds better“ crowd: Most records in the 80s were mixed digitally, so „it‘s analog“ can‘t be the reason.

[@mymixture965]

There is an easy solution, buy old vinyl, before the mid 80´s, guaranteed analog and yes you are right, new vinyl often sounds poor.

[@kenmorley2339]

I agree . I have found that there are fewer pops and crackles on s/h lps from the 80s than on vinyl reissues .

[@1999zrx1100]

Fat Rat Too bad, I kept mine and after a good cleaning they sound way better then the CD’s I have of the same album. Vinyl is king 👑

[@joebloggs8636]

@Fat Rat drugs kill

[@joebloggs8636]

@@1999zrx1100 agreed %100

[@joebloggs8636]

@Fat Rat are you high or just that stupid?

[@BOKOLIS76]

Simply the whole recording process is in digital files transered to a vinyl. End of story

[@now_its_dark]

Your critique of modern recording style is totally valid, but do you think it's very relevant to the actual question at hand in this case? What you mentioned toward the end about essentially re-using or only slightly adjusting the same master intended for cd / digital streaming seems like the main issue to me. Regardless of the character of the original recording and subjective preference for higher dynamic range or not, shouldn't any recording theoretically be adaptable to sound as good as it can through proper vinyl mastering (aka playing to the strengths of the medium) if the work is put in? And on a broader note- do you think the skill of mastering audio for vinyl is becoming a lost art, despite the popular resurgence of the medium?

[@saintcole1085]

The sourse of the recording matters a lot too digital work stations vs reel to reel and so on, the way people produce music has changed and is becoming more in the box but there are some of us still pushing the analogue sound and equipment and is still a huge market in the gear world

[@SaraNZW]

Analog recording died in the 80s.Dead like an Elvis.

[@venturarodriguezvallejo9777]

And well died (but not properly buried).

[@wade998]

More like the early 2000s. That's when tape started to be replaced.

[@birgerolofsson2347]

I agree!! STOP IT!!

[@louf7178]

I did not know this. This is saying the grove being read by a stylus is a discrete-amplitude approximation, "digital signal", of an analog signal?

[@grandiebob2500]

I enjoy this channel. Linn (U.K.) ditched CD replay, committed to hi-res streaming and retained their turntable launched in 1973 providing an upgrade path for both. There’s a place for whatever format or mix of formats that give me enjoyment. There’s no absolutes in this.

[@harmono8766]

Dude you took two minutes and 15 seconds to say something you could have said in 30 seconds.

[@ItsRoyZinky]

@@jrvasquez maybe for some. But for people like myself. I could absolutely care less to listen to such a rant. I came for the title. At least give us the results then continue the filler.

[@geofferzh79]

The irony. Your paragraph could of been a simple sentence

[@thisisnev]

Vinylphiles: this long player sounds too digital! Also vinylphiles: we want more dynamics! Dynamic range of vinyl: 60-70dB Dynamic range of CD: 96dB Just throwing that out there, guys...

[@johannkrist]

Yeah, bu through proper equipment vinyl still sounds betters, :o

[@thisisnev]

@@johannkrist Ah, proper equipment. You mean a Dansette?

[@dednside5229]

Thier alot of other factors involved LP's can actually have superior Effective Dynamics than a DAC or CD player In fact dynamics is a big reason KZbin Hifivinylnews He talks alot about that and makes recommendations against under 10k dacs

[@theovonskeletor3709]

The bass on vinyl on mono too :/ and a lot of artists have to remove certain things from song to make it work on vinyl. :/ No thanks

[@NickP333]

Jeremy Whittler Yes! Agree. Big fan of Ian, btw.

[@Madyetmellow]

Cartridges have improved greatly and the vinyl is far better pressed nowadays. Got tonnes of old dance records from the 80s and 90s and many are not great presses. The bigger studios never really had a problem with pressing. I didn’t realise just how complicated it is in pressing your own vinyl. Probably explains why some sound great and some sound crap as the science wasn’t there a few decades ago especially for the smaller labels

[@380stroker]

Analog reel to reel transferred to Vinyl is the real way to listen to a vinyl. This day and age people (consumers) are being ripped off and they don't even know it, so they have questions like the person on this video. Analog needs to be transferred to vinyl. I have a vinyl recording where the source was analog tape and it's a 100% analog transfer. I have the same recording in 24bit / 192Khz digital with a great DAC. The vinyl sounds way better to my ears. The vinyl version sounds more "open", fluid, and real. Just so you know, I spend a crap ton of time doing A/B tests on anything audio. In my opinion, the "ideal" way to deal with this problem is for artists to record everything on analog tape once again. Have a master recording from reel to reel transferred to vinyl, so audiophiles can have an actual analog recording. Also digitize the reel to reel master tape in a modern mastering studio for digital release for CD, Hi-Rez and streaming. Best of both worlds. Digital files have Jitter and are pictures of the sound (Samples Rate), which is absent in analog.