In the UK, at least, most records were played on mono portable record players, or cheapish radiograms, with ceramic cartridges and speakers that make modern smart speakers sound like paragons of virtue, well into the 1970s.The majority of records were mastered accordingly.
There was no golden era when vinyl wasn’t compromised.
There were always the constraints of the medium. But mastering engineers were not utterly uncaring about hi-fi. I recall a story about EMI's (Decca? Angel? London? I think it was Angel in those days) seminal early-60's studio recording of Wagner's
Ring of the Nibelungen. He wanted Kirsten Flagstad to perform for part of it, but she was aging and her experience with sound reproduction had left her disillusioned about the very notion of recording, and she refused. The producer (whose name I don't now recall--I read about this probably 35 years ago) went to her home, set up a proper stereo, and played records to her. She came to realize that playback could actually represent her artistic intentions well enough, and she participated in the recording. Those guys at EMI were not thinking 12-year-olds were going to be listening to
Gotterdamerung on their little Decca players. And they definitely were aiming to convert the previous generations of live-listening-trained listeners to modern equipment, which would encourage them to buy new recordings. Therefore they mastered them to attain high-quality playback on good equipment, not merely acceptable playback on poor equipment, though I'm not sure those two objectives are as much in conflict as people make them out to be.
In another genre, I'm recalling how Jon Anderson went over and over with recording to get the sound he wanted from a
Yes album--to a greater extent than the other musicians in the group at the time. He has little technical understanding, but a clear vision of the result he wanted. We think Eddie Offord did that work, but Anderson was right there demanding his own vision. Yes, there was the circle of confusion with respect to their playback equipment. But I don't recall anything at all in what Anderson said about making it sound good to 12-year-olds and their Decca record players. He wanted it to sound like he wanted it to sound--he was pleasing himself first and foremost. All the musicians of that time knew that the mastering of an LP could make or break what they were trying to achieve. Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe were doing an interview in maybe 1972, and Wakeman was just going to hear the first cut of his first solo album. That album was extremely dynamic and required all sorts of tricks, I'm sure, to get it onto the vinyl. A&M reissued it on CD in the 80's, and I have both versions. If there's a difference in the mix, I can't tell it.
Yes, there were compromises made in relation to the medium, as with the production (and reproduction) of any art form. Photographers have to limit the color gamut when printing photos, compared to what they can show on a monitor, or by projection of a transparency. Sometimes, features are exaggerated to make up for what that medium lacks otherwise. And so on. But that doesn't mean all of them were consistently targeting the lowest common denominator. Top-40 stuff, maybe, but I was never really into that (well, except for early Elton John and Cat Stevens).
Rick "in no way, however, does this mean LP's are better than CD's, unless the CD was ruined by later mastering mistakes" Denney