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Comment by dbatten | Hacker News Reader

I think the implication was that, once mp3 is no longer a household format, there will be a certain type of person who feels a nostalgia for the "sound" of mp3s, maybe even advocating that it was "better" in some way than the sound of whatever comes next...

This is basically what's happened with vinyl records at this point, right? People have a nostalgia for their sound, even though by any scientific or technical measure a vinyl record represents music/sound less faithfully than, for example, lossless CD audio...

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Supposedly, one of the big reasons people prefer vinyl is not because of the medium. It's because of the mastering process.

CDs and/or Streaming services are victims of the "loudness" wars, resulting in music with low dynamic range. Since vinyl is often mastered by someone who specializes in the vinyl and is rather niche, they have full freedom to make it sound as good as it ever will be.

That's also one reason why some people prefer Tidal or <insert HiFi music services of your choice> because sometimes they simply use better masters. At least, that's the only reason that can't be chalked up to placebo

A really weird side effect of this is that there are "objective" tools for comparing the dynamic range of different releases.[1] Vinyl releases will consistently measure much better and have "nicer" looking waveforms, even if they were mastered identically.[2]

[1] http://dr.loudness-war.info/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AE9dL5FG8

That is a big reason for me. It is not about better as much as it is a familiar set of tradeoffs and production values.

but we're drawn to "analog warmth" for whatever reason. We see it in guitars obviously with tube amps and analog effects pedals preferred over their digital counterparts. Vinyl has that messy analog-ish sound that we find pleasing in a similar way.

Shrill low-bitrate, lower-fidelity digital sound just doesn't evoke that feeling in us. The same way no one is asking for RealMedia videos on their home theater system, but prefer film grain on video and 3D CGI to look "messy" (another analog noise characteristic). We humans love noise apparently! I guess evolution built us for a noisy and messy world and digital sound just seems off to us. We'll make an effort to get closer to analog warmth but do out best to flee digital shrill.

Are we actually inherently drawn to analog artifacts including things like film grain? Or are we accustomed to seeing/hearing it? If you plucked a member of an un-contacted tribe out of the Amazon, would they prefer film grain and vinyl? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to hear the evidence presented.

I remember the first time I saw 60hz video on a flat screen TV. I thought the motion looked so incredibly unnatural it was almost unwatchable. Now, it just seems normal. It had nothing to do with 60hz video itself - it had to do with the expectations built up by years of watching 29.97hz interlaced NTSC video...

This is a reasonable take.

I'd never deliberately add tape hiss to a track, but when I hear a song with that hiss it just takes me back.

As seen in the keyboard space! Try the latest XPS 15: low travel yet perfect feedback, better than mechanical keyboards!

While we now have better technology, people prefer what they are familiar with.

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