New Vinyl and Compression, NOT a vinyl vs digital thread Options

[indybrett]

In general... would vinyl versions of recently mastered audio also suffer from over compression? I suppose the answer would change as we worked our way back in time.

I have a decent turntable that isn't being used, and was contemplating getting vinyl versions of things like Metallica's Black Album, and even more recently mastered music if the audio is less "squashed" than the CD version.

I found this thread, but it covers a lot more than the one simple aspect I'm asking about.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=722028

Edit: grammar

This post has been edited by indybrett: Feb 10 2012, 19:56

[pdq]

Actually it makes MORE sense to use dynamic range compression for an analog medium due to its smaller dynamic range compared to digital.

[mzil]

Actually it makes MORE sense to use dynamic range compression for an analog medium due to its smaller dynamic range compared to digital.

Agreed.
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My understanding is that heavily, overly compressed rock music is a byproduct of how FM radio advertising money is distributed:
A radio station's ad money is reflected by how many listeners they have, and a squished dynamic range is a trick method of getting a further broadcasting signal. No, it doesn't REALLY increase the range, however people at the very fringe, say 50-60 miles from the tower, can easily hear the sound over the then elevated (background) noise floor of FM transmission at that range, whereas that exact same elevated noise floor from a similar station broadcasting on top of a song that has a lower average loudness, will seem hissy, objectionable, and make one change the station looking for a new song!

The radio station which can prove they have 500,000 listeners during the morning commute gets a lot more advertising money than the station which can only document they have 300,000 listeners.

Although they all probably routinely compress on their own, as well, the music which comes to them pre-compressed by a recording engineer who didn't simply dial in a generic and fixed amount of compression, like the station's sound room ONLY can, but instead used a variable amount per song, where they engineer could tweak the results after comparing several tested versions, wins.

This post has been edited by mzil: Feb 11 2012, 03:11