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Comment by d-lisp | Hacker News Reader

I have two versions of the same album, one on CD, one on vinyl. They don't sound the same and I prefer the version on vinyl, I am not implying it objectively sounds better, maybe it sounds worse at the wave level, but it sounds better to me, it seems much more "present". Could you teach me what is the reason for this ?

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Vinyl's dynamic range is way inferior to CD's one, that makes it a natural compressor. Most like vinyl sound because it's compressed as well, albeit not awfully bad like modern digital productions. Many vinyl records made in the 90s were mastered digitally before printing, and audiophiles swear they hear the same magic sound although what they listen to comes from 100% digital material.

> it seems much more "present"

That could be due to some low frequencies that vinyl can't reproduce and are reduced to avoid distortion. Also vinyl's poor crosstalk figures could play a role here.

> and audiophiles swear they hear the same magic sound although what they listen to comes from 100% digital material

Not unlikely, as the signal did get converted back to analog, and the physical media's characteristics influence the mastering even when it's being done digitally.

Differences in the sound waves that reach the ear can come from the audio data being written to and retrieved from an imperfect recording medium (vinyl), as well as differenced in frequency responses between the amplifiers or speakers used after the audio is read.

"Presence" is usually associated with high frequency content. Turn up the high frequencies and the music seems more present. Therefore, differences in media/amplifier/speaker high frequency response will make the music seem more or less "present".

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