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There are a few reasons so many CDs sound inferior to the LP.

Posted by soundnut (A) on March 6, 2007 at 17:31:31

In Reply to: Re: Vinyl recorded cd-r's are a pretty sweet gig posted by NuWave on March 6, 2007 at 14:53:49:

And it doesn't have anything to do with the final CD or the LP itself.

Once upon a time not too long ago, many labels decided to clean house. There were literally warehouses full of original master tapes taking up space and executives ordered many of the masters thrown out to make room. In some cases, masters were accidentally damaged. The LPs & prerecorded tapes had already been mastered, but by the time CD came around many of the original masters were gone. Many of those CDs "digitally remastered from original master tapes" were in reality, taken from bin masters, which are sometimes several generations away from the original master. Or, they were sometimes taken from tapes EQ'ed as LP masters with the RIAA curve and then compensated for during the mastering to CD.

Another reason some CDs sound so crappy is because they're waaaay overmodulated. Especially in the case of pop records, engineers are often told to master it to the point of clipping, since it's thought by many record company pinheads that the loudness factor plays a part in whether the record will be a hit with the kiddies. Due to the physical limitations of an LP, you can't do that with vinyl.

The CD itself as an end medium is fine, but too frequently the stuff leading up to the final product makes it sound awful.

Cheers & happy listening,
Bobbo :-)

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