DAMN! It's about time. (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, April 29, 2018, 20:53 (2249 days ago) @ Stephen Laughlin
edited by Cody Miller, Sunday, April 29, 2018, 21:24

Why does everyone want this on Vinyl? Don’t you want it to sound as good as possible? :-p

I have a few reasons. Album art and audio fidelity mostly. :)

Due to the physical limitations of cut grooves on a vinyl record there's usually a lot less compression applied to the vinyl master as there is to a CD and digital release of the same album. Hence, more dynamic range (contrast between quiet and loud), especially important in classical music. See: the loudness wars.

That can be fixed by not compressing the master you press to CD. The loudness wars highlights a creative trend in the mastering, not a limitation of the format. In fact, 16 bit audio has considerably more dynamic range than a vinyl. With proper dithering a CD can go from a mosquito buzzing 5 feet from your ear, to the threshold of pain. You have it backwards - a CD has more dynamic range to work with.

The Vinyl gives ~70db dynamic range. The CD at worst gives 96db if you don't even bother with dithering. That's more than a 100x difference.

The 16-bit compact disc has a theoretical undithered dynamic range of about 96 dB,[20][d] however, the perceived dynamic range of 16-bit audio can be 120 dB or more with noise-shaped dither, taking advantage of the frequency response of the human ear.[21][22]

Early 78 rpm phonograph discs had a dynamic range of up to 40 dB,[24] soon reduced to 30 dB and worse due to wear from repeated play. Vinyl microgroove phonograph records typically yield 55-65 dB, though the first play of the higher-fidelity outer rings can achieve a dynamic range of 70 dB.[25]