New album reviews

[wilsonmac]

Originally Posted by kenzo

Compression is needed much more for vinyl, not CD mastering. LPs have much less dynamic range available, more crosstalk, noise, and distortion.

If you enjoy the particular coloring that vinyl provides, great, but no one should mistake "preference" for "better".

Streaming is widely variable in quality, but Amazon Music HD (for example) provides LB's new album in better-than-CD 24 bit / 44.1 kHz.

To be more specific... the use of peak limiting (I'm sure many on this thread are bored by this stuff). The "limitations" of vinyl are what require it to have a unique mastering. In my experience that lends to a much more dynamic experience. This is of course not always the case, but in the last 5 years it has been more common. The music purchased in HD (24/96) and CD (16/44.1) are often the same mastering while the vinyl has been done separately. I'll have both to compare soon, and I'll let you know what I hear.

Out of the Cradle is one of the greatest mastering of any rock/pop CD I own. Good example of how squashed things have become since 1992.