Jean.Francois
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Hello,
The vinyl record is an analog medium. How can it be affected by the loudness war?
This translates into a reduction in the quality of the vinyl record, which is collateral damage from the loudness war.
We'll use Prince's Purple Rain as an example to describe this phenomenon. However, let's start by looking at what's happening to digital versions.
Loudness war is a phenomenon linked to the digital medium, which consists in music becoming louder on a digital support
The waveforms below illustrate this phenomenon for the CD editions:
How can vinyl be affected by loudness war?
In fact, you can't turn up the volume like you can with digital, because there are physical constraints specific to the analog medium. The problem is that we no longer try to make a vinyl-specific master from the original mix, but use the dynamic-compressed digital master as a basis for burning the vinyl record.
The waveforms below show the original vinyl record and the vinyl record made from the remastered version in 2015.
We notice that the cutting level on the remastered vinyl record is 1 dB lower than that of the original version, and more importantly, we notice a flattening of the peaks with a dynamic range reduced by over 5 dB!
This is not an isolated example, but a growing phenomenon. This is also the case for the following albums: Bruce Springsteen - Born In The U.S.A., David Gilmour - Luck and Strange, Norah Jones - Visions...
But, as always, it’s important not to generalize, and there are still productions that give priority to quality, like the latest REQUESTS – Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio LIVE album, or Analogue production, MOFI for example…
You can listen to samples on the impact of the loudness war on the vinyl record, as well as all the details of the analysis here (link).
Enjoy listening,
Jean-François
The vinyl record is an analog medium. How can it be affected by the loudness war?
This translates into a reduction in the quality of the vinyl record, which is collateral damage from the loudness war.
We'll use Prince's Purple Rain as an example to describe this phenomenon. However, let's start by looking at what's happening to digital versions.
Loudness war is a phenomenon linked to the digital medium, which consists in music becoming louder on a digital support
The waveforms below illustrate this phenomenon for the CD editions:
How can vinyl be affected by loudness war?
In fact, you can't turn up the volume like you can with digital, because there are physical constraints specific to the analog medium. The problem is that we no longer try to make a vinyl-specific master from the original mix, but use the dynamic-compressed digital master as a basis for burning the vinyl record.
The waveforms below show the original vinyl record and the vinyl record made from the remastered version in 2015.
We notice that the cutting level on the remastered vinyl record is 1 dB lower than that of the original version, and more importantly, we notice a flattening of the peaks with a dynamic range reduced by over 5 dB!
This is not an isolated example, but a growing phenomenon. This is also the case for the following albums: Bruce Springsteen - Born In The U.S.A., David Gilmour - Luck and Strange, Norah Jones - Visions...
But, as always, it’s important not to generalize, and there are still productions that give priority to quality, like the latest REQUESTS – Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio LIVE album, or Analogue production, MOFI for example…
You can listen to samples on the impact of the loudness war on the vinyl record, as well as all the details of the analysis here (link).
Enjoy listening,
Jean-François
