Hacker News Reader

Comment by JohnTHaller | Hacker News Reader

Vinyl in actual use has a much narrower range than CDs or MP3s. One things that is common, though, is for Vinyl to be mastered differently than the digital final result. So, it is entirely possible for the CD/MP3 release of a given song to have a much narrower dynamic range than a Vinyl release of a given song despite being released on demonstrably inferior technology.

View on HN

Said differently, the limitations of a medium can lead to better decisions. What can be done with a limited toolset is often better than what can be done with an unlimited toolset.

In this specific case, it's not a result of the toolset, but a result of the consumer. The vinyl enthusiast is buying something they are a fan of at a higher price and expecting a quality product. The typical MP3 customer is buying it based on a 15 second sample. So, the 'loudness wars' still apply to many digital products, sadly.

The loudness wars aren't physically possible on vinyl, they aren't prevented by customer preference but instead by physics.

Photographing in black and white forces the photographer to concentrate on light, shadow, and texture.

There are several art forms where the artist picks a set of restrictions to work in and that exploration can create great things.

The demoscene creates mind-blowing works because they have to work in such a small data space.

If every organism survived and reproduced without any restriction, the sum of life would be pond scum.

The punishing negative feedback of restrictions drives creation – just as much as breaking those boundaries.

Less is more.

Worse is better.

Everything in moderation.

They could still just as easily take the existing digital master and dial down the amplitude a bit to work with vinyl. This would be especially easy considering how few vinyl records they sell vs digital. But, many people are paying a premium for vinyl and expecting better sound.

That is simply NOT TRUE.

Vinyl has been demonstrated to be able to cut and playback frequencies of up to 70khz, and many commercially released records from as far back as the 70s had data up to the mid 40khz range (and in fact this is required for quadraphonic playback).

Even if it's theoretically capable of doing that, I think the average cd player produces a better frequency range than the average record player. In any case, I thought the parent was talking about dynamic range, not frequency range.

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Myths_(Vinyl)#Myt...

And FM radio can handle frequencies well beyond that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com