i was comparing the qobuz version of Dirt by Alice in Chains with my vinyl pressing (both 2022 remasters) and i noticed that the digital version is a little too bright and it felt more compressed (drums in vinyl are more punchy). I am curious about why, especially about why the qobuz version sounds brighter.thanks
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If I understand correctly, vinyl has less dynamic range, so they can’t master for loudness like they can with digital.
I checked the Dynamic Range Database and your suspicions are exactly correct. The digital version is is compressed with minimal dynamic range and the vinyl is not. This is a prime example of the reason vinyl often sounds better even though it is a technical an inferior format.
It’s not uncommon to for vinyl to have its own master.
yea, it’s a shame that digital is so poorly exploited in terms of dynamic range because people tend to make things sound “louder” and “competitive”
There is zero evidence given here to support such a blanket statement. Fair to say some versions/mixes/masters may be better than others, including vinyl over digital? Certainly. Claiming vinyl ‘often sounds better’ based off of this n of 1? Nope.
‘better’ is probably wrong, but certainly vinyl is consistently more dynamic, as are CD releases from about before 1994.
https://youtu.be/i3OqVUsqkh8?si=6esNtwL4aI6zh_Bh
Darko covers this.
I’ve found music on Qobuz, at least via their iphone app, is always bright. Sometimes excruciatingly so, even compared to Tidal or HDTracks downloads. Vinyl generally doesn’t do high frequencies well without good equipment, but it’s more than that and I share your experience.
You’re opening the door for the damaged to flood replies to your OP with why you’re not hearing what you’re hearing
They’re always different masters so it’s never an apple to apples comparison.
Vinyl generally has a little bit of the high end missing, depending on the cartridge obviously. it’s part of the “warmer” sound people talk about
Yes you can compress vinyl matters like you can CD because of the generally more infinite dynamic range of CD making easy for even louder mastering. So that and the vinyl records will be jumping violently and not play well.
So because of that limitation, vinyl is generally conservative with reducing dynamics just to be louder than another record…
Funny how the medium that was created so more expression of dynamic range could be achieved ended up doing the opposite.
Why do you think orchestras and the other generally more dynamic forms of music jumped to CD quickly after it was invented cos it meant they didn’t have to play at a certain constant loudness threshold and now can have the quietest parts and the most bombastic ones afterward be cause of the whooping 96dB of dynamic range.
Mainstream music went the opposite direction and don’t even use 10dB of dynamic range.
There’s this arbitrary standard of mastering with on 9dB dynamic range as average.
It’s sad.
For example: CD Version of “25” by Adele has an average DR of 5 - https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/184764
Vinyl Version of the same album has a DR average of 11 - https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/99017
That’d 6dB more dynamic range on average on a format that is actually inferior. Sad
Your missing something in your understanding of dynamics i think… your focused on total spl dynamics but there is an inner dynamic that alot of people seem to get confused about. If you look at the masterbus of a mix you have one continuous waveform. That waveform holds the information for all the instruments in the track. And there is only so much spectral information that can come out of your speaker at one time. What you hear in analog seeing as analog is essentially infinite medium is instruments dancing within their own dynamic ranges as opposed to digital which grabs everything together as a whole and tells it when to go up and down.
The white noise you hear on lps is not “noise” in a traditional sense it’s “noise” that allows your cortex to fill in the gaps so to speak.
The analog to digital digital to analog conversion has spent its entire existence trying to replicate the sound of being analog and to many people such as myself there is still something missing.
The analog to digital conversion takes a waveform of infinite mathematical density and takes forty four thousand one hundred samples of voltage every second and depending on your bitrate, a certain amount of cpu memory is dedicated to the dynamic range between each of those individual samples of voltage. If your computer can’t think fast enough well thats distortion, if your in 192k and your file is 44.1 that’s distortion, if your computer needs an update that’s distortion, then you got compression algorithms, faulty wordclocks… half the time people don’t even realize that their digital files have been severely compromised because they can’t hear for shit anyway. Cds are 44.1 16bit and some of them sound fucking fantastic but vhynl still sounds better
What you hear in analog seeing as analog is essentially infinite medium is instruments dancing within their own dynamic ranges as opposed to digital which grabs everything together as a whole and tells it when to go up and down
Bro what planet are you living on? This is a wild take and means nothing in the context of music production and recording.
Analog vastly restricted dynamic range due to noise floor competition, and most of the flavor we like is a clamping down on dynamic range into total harmonic distortion. If anything digital recording has vastly increased the dynamic range possibilities that weren’t possible before in exchange for a very hard ceiling of loudness.
I’d take a look inward for all your wild distortion problems. Half of those scenarios won’t cause distortion under like any circumstance.
Can’t tell if sarcastic or not so for anyone reading (because people believe more ridiculous things when it comes to home audio), the groove on a vinyl record is just a waveform same as that which is output from the 2bus.
I dont know where your getting sarcasm… try to picture a waveform that’s connected directly to the analog source; perfect example is a seismagraph as it is the same technology… that is a waveform connected directly to the source of the energy in this case the rumblings of the earth. There is enough mathematical data within those waveforms to develop the Fast Fourier Transfer algorithm which is responsible for basically all computational process that happen today.
Do you think if you replaced the smooth waveform data with jagged microscopic 90 degree angles ie (samples) the Fast Fourier transform would still work?
The things you’re saying only work if polyvinyl chloride is assumed to be a theoretically perfect medium, which it obviously isn’t.
The white noise you hear on lps is not “noise” in a traditional sense it’s “noise” that allows your cortex to fill in the gaps so to speak.
The surface noise is the sound of friction. It limits the medium’s ability to reproduce the audio recorded in the waveform.
If your computer can’t think fast enough well thats distortion
No, the computer being unable to process the bitstream leads to dropout, not distortion.
if your in 192k and your file is 44.1 that’s distortion
Upsampling doesn’t add distortion
if your computer needs an update that’s distortion
doesn’t make sense
vhynl
that’s what made me err on the side of sarcasm
And white noise is added in on purpose? it’s not just surface noise
The actual dynamic range of the recording is more important than the medium used to record it.
Vinyl has physical limitations that limit the amount of dynamic range compression that can be used. So many vinyl recordings have MORE dynamic range than their digital counterparts. Not because of the medium, vinyl is clearly technically inferior, but because of the mastering.
Also vinyl is plenty good enough as a medium with 65 dB dynamic range. Noise floor of most homes is 40 db, and if you listen at 95 dB which is plenty loud, you’ll have 55 dB of dynamic range and vinyl noise will be below the noise floor of your listening room.
You also have to think about how the music will be listened to.
Obviously the vinyl version will be played at home, on a turntable with speakers.
The digital will most likely be played on phones, Bluetooth speakers or tvs. No need for thumping bass when it won’t be able to be properly replicated.