Mastering Vinyl, Myths, questions, discussion Options

[Axon]

This is a split of a discussion Hancoque and I had, which desperately needs to be elaborated on.

First of all, I've dumped my thoughts on the matter into the Wiki: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...Vinyl_Mastering. Please comment on it.

A couple of the points there are explicitly worth starting this topic off:

• There is no consistent, unambiguous way to identify the provenance of a vinyl master. Most methods - but most of all, the zoomed-out waveform plot - are inaccurate in one way or another. Visual examination of clipped samples is fairly telling, but not applicable or effective in all cases. How can a vinyl master be accurately observed as being the same or different as a CD master?
• Even if a difference exists, whether or not it is audible is another question entirely. IIRC, brickwall limiting of 3-4db, correctly applied, may not be audible. If so, Hancoque's Slayer waveforms might not mean anything, because his peaks are all within 4db of the CD peaks. What audibility thresholds exist for clipped signals?

That said, I may be eating a hearty dinner of crow tonight, as I just examined one of the records I thought was of the same master as the CD (Battles - Mirrored), and I was able to observe pretty strong differences in clipping between the vinyl and CD versions. I'll reply later with some visual examples.

[analog scott]

2. While your comments are novel and interesting on a theoretical basis they really are non issues in the world of vinyl since no one is actually doing what you are talking about there.

Not sure I understand what you're getting at. Are you saying that my comment is not relevant because in the real world nobody actually cuts vinyl LPs from the same hypercompressed master as the CD? The impression I get from what others have said is that this is precisely what seems to be going on in some cases. If that isn't what you're saying, can you try and rephrase?

Compression is not a black and white issue. I will as a matter of logic assert that when the compression is so severe that the cutting heads will burn out that *yes* there is no real world vinyl cut form such masters. Are there CDs and vinyl cut from identical masters that are already compressed first? yeah of course. It happens both ways.

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

2. While your comments are novel and interesting on a theoretical basis they really are non issues in the world of vinyl since no one is actually doing what you are talking about there.

Not sure I understand what you're getting at. Are you saying that my comment is not relevant because in the real world nobody actually cuts vinyl LPs from the same hypercompressed master as the CD? The impression I get from what others have said is that this is precisely what seems to be going on in some cases. If that isn't what you're saying, can you try and rephrase?

Compression is not a black and white issue. I will as a matter of logic assert that when the compression is so severe that the cutting heads will burn out that *yes* there is no real world vinyl cut form such masters. Are there CDs and vinyl cut from identical masters that are already compressed first? yeah of course. It happens both ways.

This is all pretty ironic becase back in the day, compression was widely used to cut vinyl to help circumvent its limited dynamic range, and CDs were less likely to be compressed because the medium was up to just about any signal you could send down a wire.

Hypercompressed audio can definately be recorded on vinyl, all you have to do is cut the recording levels. Music that is both hot and hypercomressed can also be put on vinyl with appropriate reductions in recorded level.

Today, compression is essentially an artistic, not a technical choice, if we're talking about digital media. Hypercompression is not being done for technical reasons.

Currently, new vinyl releases are specialty items that are not intended for the general market of music lovers. Furthermore, the number of new vinyl titles is such a thin fraction of all new releases that anybody who just listens to vinyl is missing most of the action.