Vinyl records, CD, MP3 and Bluetooth
Can we talk about why vinyls sound better then MP3s and sometimes even CD . I went back to Vinyl as I just like the size and sound is there better or some new Tec on the horizon?
I think we need to put some more effort into existing digital tech, PCM and DSD are great formats, cheap, decent converters are still a problem. Considering latest trends with digital assets, collecting physical items may become thing of a past pretty soon.
Mastering is the process of tweaking a 2 channel mixdown with compression, EQ, etc. for optimal playback across a wide variety of devices. Think of a "master copy" that is then duplicated and sold.
A lot of times the "master copy" used to duplicate onto vinyl is tuned differently from the "master copy" used for duplicating onto CD, MP3, etc.
If you think about it, CD, MP3, streaming, these formats are going to be optimized for loudness and EQ'd in a way to make the main elements clear when played on things like laptops, smartphones, etc. A lot of the dynamics (difference between soft and loud parts) are lost when optimizing for loudness.
A master for vinyl on the other hand is going to be optimized for playback on a record player attached to a hifi. And more of the dynamics will be left in as it's not competing for loudness in the same way as digital media.
In the limited cases I have done, you need to sample at least double the sample rate of the final designed product or you get a distinctly metalic sound to the result.
Also if the final production sample rate is an exact multiple of the original sample rate you can also get odd effects coming through.
In summary it is a lot more complicated than most people realise and some conversions are quite simply horrible.