When HI-RES AUDIO stops making sense... 

This loudness war is a plague … fueled by the adoption of crappy Bluetooth mono speakers and crappy in ear headphones …

Sometimes I think that John forgot more about audio than I will ever know. I really enjoy these audio knowledge drops and learning something new.

Thank you. I could never work out why I enjoyed the bluray stereo version sound on my home theatre more than the 1999 special new edition CD on my hi fi set up. Now I know. By the way the 1999 CD is a HDCD recording. Bob Ludwig was credited in the liner notes but it is not clear how much he was involved.

How to mesure the DR of a Vinyl? I guess that it will depend on the equipment a lot compared to the CD, digital, blue ray, that the file can be analyzed ‘as it is’

As always fascinating stuff.

I consider (Stop making Sense) a concert movie, prefer the same songs on the Greatest hits Album. Concert releases always seem to lack the studio quality, but bluray video version (which makes it worse) should give a listener something to grasp onto while the music may be lacking a bit. I compare this concert film to Sade 2011 concert bluray which is absolutely stunning in both visual viewing and both Stereo and DTS surround (which gives you the feeling of being at the event).

A good example for the Jazz heads ! Eric Dolphy Out to Lunch , the original 16 bit CD sounds way better than re mastered RVG 24 bit. Now I know why, thanks John.

The only thing I have to say about various formats (16/44.1, 24/192, DSD), is many people (Mr. Darko included on this video), is that, one big aspect seems to be ignored. And that aspect is, imaging and soundstage. If one listens to music that is recorded, where all the musicians are playing at the same time, in the same acoustic, and the recording engineer puts in good efforts to capture: the natural ambience of the acoustic space, the musicians location within that space in relation to each other, and with relation to the space's boundaries, and other spatial cues, there is, a fairly easy to notice, improvement in the preproduction of these aspects, with higher res sources. Of course, I am talking about classical music, which is far from having any sort of popularity these days. This natural ambience does not exist in the vast majority of studio recordings, because it gets buried behind all the studio effects used: overdubs, digital delay, compression, quantization, panning, EQ, etc, etc. So, hearing a natural, real soundstage, and the musicians positions within it, is not even a thing.

Original CD sure sounds good! Learned a lot in this one, thanks.

I’ve watched this before but decided to watch again because I am still not convinced by your argument about dynamic range particularly when you talk about the mp3 sounding better than the flac. Now I’m not saying your are wrong about this particular album, but I’m really just going off my own experience using an astel & kern dap (dual wolfson DAC) and seinheiser IE800 in ear drivers. The majority of my content is 16/44 flac from CD the remainder being 24/96 flac vinyl rips. Now I’ve heard all the arguments about nyquist rate and also studied that at uni, so I won’t challenge that, but consistently I find that my vinyl rips sound much better than my cd rips and I can’t account for this difference except to say that the only other difference is the bit depth. But as I write this I recall from another of your videos that the masters used for streaming services are different to the masters for the vinyl pressing. You didn’t mention whether the cd master would be the same as vinyl or streaming but I would guess the latter and if this is the case then this could be the reason for the difference in sound quality rather than 24 bit vs 16; would you agree? I suppose really I should have ripped my vinyl at 24/44, but at this point I’m not going back to re-rip it all, life too short.

As someone that remembers listening to Talking Heads on cassette, with the headphones that came with my Walkman, while mowing the lawn, pretty much everything sounds better now.

And you may ask yourself: “What is the dynamic range like?”

I feel like this is the definitive case study on why vinyl or bit rate alone will not guarantee the best audio quality. Bravo!

The elephant in the room that wasn’t mentioned is that the original mix was from a Sony PCM-3324 DASH recorder, which has a maximum resolution of 48k 16bit. Any version claiming higher resolution than that has been upsampled

It should be pointed out that a track being "high dynamic range" is not necessarily a universal good. It's great in a quiet listening environment, but in a car or a bus, you end up turning up the volume to hear the quiet sections, and then get your head blown off by the loud sections. It's almost like there need to be separate masters, labeled as such, depending on the use case.

As a recording artist and studio producer, I enjoyed this quite a lot. Compression is a tool to be used delicately. It is necessary to balance dynamics between sole tracks so that they balance each other in the mix. But overall dynamic range compression can be a terrible thing if done without sensitivity. It's a testament to the engineers that recorded it and later mastered it that a live recording back in the 80s was recorded so well. Because it's usually live recordings that suffer badly under the compression tool as a producer tries to account for live variables. Anyway, it's great to watch that live Blu-ray. We forget how brilliant and innovative Talking Heads were. My fav band... Prince's Sign of the Times. Another brilliant live concert movie....❤

As I've said before, it's not about the format, it's about the music. In my case I have many LPs which never came out on CD - and now in 2023 I have many CDs that aren't available on LP. I think loudness wars did enormous damage to the CD format's reputation. At my age I have a pretty big collection, and for music that I really love I usually have several CD editions, often the LP as well. For me, in pretty well 90% of cases, it's the pre-loudness war CDs which come out on top and get played the most. In recent years, I've kind of developed a new hifi mentality - that my system is there to "serve my collection". As I can't have all the music I love in perfect sound then I need that can handle just about everything.

I try to avoid re-masters if possible, as it's as you say, a fancy way of saying "made louder". The best sounding CDs are generally the ones made in the 80s and early 90's, after that it's pot luck on how good a job they have done. It's why vinyl often sounds better than CD, because they have to master it differently so it works on vinyl. Great video JD. Music first, mastering second, format last.

My older brother and his friend rented Stop Making Sense on VHS back in 1987. They were cool enuff to let me watch with them. My 14 yr old brain was blown away. I remember hopping on the bus and buying Fear of Music and Speaking in Tongues on LP later that week. I still have them. What a trip to discover and work through Talking Heads' catalogue at that age. Life-long fan ever since.

Excellent discussion! There are very few remasters that are better than the original as most modern sound engineers appear to be idiots now.

People really underestimate dynamic range. That's why I hunt old unremastered CD.

I consider myself an audiophile....which is the only real criteria for who is and who isn't one, if you think about it. I have some fairly high end equipment and speakers. Maybe I don't have golden ears. Probably don't. But in general the format the music comes in doesn't seem to matter to me. I like to think I can tell MP3 from CD or hi-res but I'm not sure I'd pass a blind test to prove it. The two things that consistently make a difference to me is the quality/production/engineering of the music and the level of dynamic range compression. I hear folks say that badly produced/recorded music can be corrected with the proper gear and set up. I call BS on that. Garbage in; garbage out. I hear folks say the same about dynamic range compression. I call BS on that too. I do not think that it is even physically/scientifically possible. Even with a lack of golden ears, I can easily detect and do not like overly DR compressed music unless I'm in the car or just have it playing in the background. (Of course judiciously used DR compression, especially with classical music is fine.) Soooo, for me the quest for recordings, regardless of the format, is for those that are not overly DR compressed or that are produced/engineered better. And I don't enjoy the quest. It isn't part of the fun.

Better a simple 44.1 version than a squashed mix at high resolution 96/192khz. Actually not all music really benefit from hi res. The mastering and the recording itself matter first than any resolution, only after the productions is outstanding you can try to improve it with a hi res version. Offering the same brickwalled, mix stereo compressed to almost mono, highly bass/treble EQ, clipped, material offered on Spotify or cheap CDs don’t making sense. Often I prefer first editions CDs, choose from the best version available to replace hi res versions or crap remastered version.

After this video I am considering to create 1000 accounts to subscribe again with each one of them. Your Channel and work is like an oasis inside the hottest desert. Thanks for this darko. Kudos from Athens Greece

A case could be made that some/many audiophiles actually have very poor hearing. That repeated/obsessional listening to music could've 'also' detrimentally affected their auditory faculties. Audiophiles reside more in their 'internal memories of music' than external stimuli. This causes a futile dilemma they're always trying to 'fix'. A problem that 'normies' don't experience. Because their connection 'or frustration' with music hasn't been so deeply internalised. As modern Western society looks towards disenfranchised groups, those that think or hear differently. Possibly Audiophiles are another 'on the spectrum' group. A compulsive, neurodivergent clique. Making up for their perceived 'lack' with obsessional and overcompensating behaviours.

It's common for mastering engineers to create different masters for vinyl releases that don't feature the heavy compression techniques used for CD's or downloads. Your vinyl edition of the 2023 album might very well have more dynamic range than the hi-res files. It would be an interesting check if you can be arsed to rip the vinyl of course! Great video , thanks.

John - this is the most IMPORTANT and REVELATORY video you've ever made! I couldn't understand why my original CD's sounded better than my supposed new 'Remastered' CD's and Hi Rez file downloads. It's like when we were duped into believing that digital was always better than analog in the '80's. I'm off to buy up all the cheap, original early NON remastered CD versions!

Remasters are usually always worse.

HUGE thing to also note is that Talking Heads have had quite the good track record as far as new mixes on new formats go, more so than most artists. The surround mixes are superb!

Perfect, John. You nailed it. 'Brick-Walled' digitally mastered recordings that are massively compressed have been, sadly, ubiquitous for a good number of years now. I'm a 40-yr. plus audio engineer/musician/producer and will always go for the original 'red book' mastered CD, as I'm less likely to get an album that comes up, when analyzed, as almost a complete black audio wave graph w/ the very occasional 'peak' which usually ends up being untethered sibilance. (Same goes for the vinyl version - give me, in most instances - the first pressing w/ original mastering).

I have the original DVD of, Fleetwood mac. The dance. I pop the disc in just to listen to, Gypsy in pcm. It sounds much better than the version on, Tidal. I've had the disc for about 30 years. It was the first DVD i bought.

My problem with vinyl is quality of the pressing differs. Ive heard vinyls that sounds very good. But most of the music i listen to, is pressed bad on vinyl. All tho CDs sounds better no matter the vinyl quality, by my experience. But somtimes i buy my jazz/blues on vinyl and everything else on CD.

I think you only have to look at how the vast majority of people consume music today. Either cheap ear buds, car stereos or Bluetooth speakers. If music was not heavily compressed, then it would not work well on these devices as they can’t reproduce the full dynamic range. The Bluray of the film is most probably going to be played on a sound system that has decent speakers and probably as sub, so will benefit for a higher range. Who knows maybe one day in the future we can have variable dynamic range to optimise to our listening equipment and environment.

Great article. Please do more like this. I ripped the Blue ray using "DVD Audio Extractor" and measure a DR of 14 on my 24 bit rip, not the 13 you mention.

I have the Blu ray and it is one of my best sounding concert Blu rays. Possibly the best. Pink floyds delicate sound of thunder is pretty high up there too

Isn't "The Last Waltz" the greatest rock movie ever? Just asking :-)

Good explanation. But don’t blame mastering engineers for making that choice with high compression, they are told to do so by label managers. I’ve seen interviews with Bernie Grundman, Kevin Grey, Bob Ludwig and others - all of them told that compression is bad and they don’t like it. But labels tend to want the album to sound loud. Bernie once said that he presented his version of the mastering to the label representative and heard next: this is very good, we like it but make it louder. And it doesn’t work that way, unfortunately - you can’t make it sound good and loud (compressed).

Mixing and mastering engineers are just as important to the end product as the musicians. If you want to delve further I recommend ’The Mixing Engineers Handbook’ by Bobby Owinski. He explains the tools and how engineers use them to create different audio experiences, covering instrument placement, use of space, compression, equalisation and more. The stylistic choices the mixing and mastering engineers make ultimately affect your listening experience and how you engage with the music.

Paul from PS Audio discussed this same topic in his video today...very helpful!!

Unfortunately most of todays music is compressed & most of the stereo image is gone. Which I think because the majority of people ( Younger Generation) are just listening to music either through a mono bluetooth speaker or direct from their phone speaker. So that is what engineers are catering for. The technology is 100% there for mastering engineers to have a very wide dynamic range & stereo image. But that would sound worse. Rick Beato just done a fantastic video in regards to why does music from 50 years ago sound better than todays music.

Amazingly informative. I love this album and cherish my original CD

I remember the day I first got my hands on Sony’s Minidisc. Handheld & automotive derived. That was a step up from ordinary CD’s in the late 90’s. Then i heard an SA-CD in a local hi-fi shop. Damn that was like hearing the instruments live in your ear.. Great episode 👍

Lucky me I have plenty of CDs from the 80th and 90th.Nice clip you going back to the basics and that is Music and how it's recorded! That was always my first priority and the HiFi system came afterwards. If you had good recorded Music then even a mediocre system sounded good. Some people forget that and chase the holy grail!

John, this is a superb and much needed explanation of the ultimate importance of mastering and of dynamic range. There is one significant omission that I would urge you to clarify, if possible, which is the difference between dynamic range compression and file compression of a digital format recording. Understanding that distinction is essential for understanding your overall argument.

Great video. With all the technical advancements I hoped that the loudness wars would be well and truly over by now. At the very least there could be two versions: the highly compressed version and what I call the musical version.

Tidal used to have original and remastered versions of a lot of stuff. Universally, the originals were better even with background noise. Now it’s usually only the remasters, which have quite heavy noise reduction. They generally sound less engaging.

THANK YOU!!! Garbage in = garbage out. The only other thing I'd mention, that will drive you crazy, is that sometimes you can have a recording that shows greater dynamic range not because it is less compressed but because it's been messed with, maybe resampled or high or low pass filtered or something else, which has caused what are called "overshoots." They don't improve the actual dynamics, they just push the average volume of everything down because of these very transient spikes. These often are coming from copies of copies of master tapes... meaning that it may register as greater dynamic range, but have more tape hiss. ...Then again, NO tape hiss may indicate aggressive noise reduction has been used, which can dull the highs... I love this hobby, and I hate it, all at the same time. I wish record labels would release absolutely flat dumps of their master tapes and let US choose to "remaster" them ourselves if we wanted.

Have you checked the dynamic range on the vinyl ? Is this possible with the software ?

Roon also analyses dynamic range and can display this information for each album, so no need for additional software or expense

You should try the original album .I have found over time that the new high priced special 180 gram albums suck and that the old albums sound better if you can buy a original release copy. The best sounding album i have is a old RCA Elvis record and i am not a huge fan of Elvis just that the record sounds amazing it was done using tube equipment mastered.

Is it possible too explain how too get a "good" lp sound, meaning: cleaning the Lp, flatten your Lp, create a better center hole, what effect electrostatic has on a Lp, etc Because the cd has also some benefits, storage problems, aging quality of the disk itself, electrostatic interference, etc And last but not least the streaming pro's and con's like, what can improve the streaming quality: better cable and is copper/silver better than using a glasfiber direct connection too your router, using cleaner electricity, etc. I also experienced that Lp is a much better format for audiophile use.I indeed hear much more info from that format, but not everybody has good ears. Ore enjoys the music format the same way. That I think is the whole journey of finding out through a lot of listening and visit your local dealer/ hifi show what's new in the market. And thanks to you 🙏🏼 a lot of sifting is done! I hope you make more entertaining video's😇

Yes, yes, YES!! I’ve been proclaiming this for years, that it’s not the format, but the mastering that you are really hearing. Compression does bring forth more details, like a magnifying glass, but at a great loss of dynamics and is fatiguing. Sadly I have SACDs where the audio wavetops are flatlined and audibly distorted. It’s a crime that I cannot get my money back on what is a clearly defective hi-res product. I love this episode! I only wish you had recorded the vinyl and measured the DR.

Excellent set of examples. Also helps me understand why my original LPs of Pink Floyd from the 1970s sound better than the recent vinyl remasters. Off loaded a new copy of DSOTM to my brother to play on his Rega TT, phono stage and Naim Muso with its digital amp as it’s not up to my pure analogue vinyl set up.

I've never been willing to part money to buy so many versions of the same music. It's sickening and always looked like scams to rip off consumers. Not condemning who does.

Radio Swiss Classis is an internet radio station which at 96 kbps AAC serves music at a very good technical quality just because none or only slight compression has been applied. "Why is the volume level of Radio Swiss Classic set lower than that for other stations? The music we play on our station goes through only the bare minimum of technical adjustment, so that you can enjoy its range to the fullest. This means that pianissimo and fortissimo alike sound almost as if you were in a concert hall. Why don’t you offer a higher streaming quality than 128kbps MP3? In view of the very rapid pace of technical progress, a gradual increase in streaming quality is likely in the medium term, but no definite plans have yet been made. Improving streaming quality means that we will need more bandwidth for each station, and that means much higher costs. However, only a small proportion of our listeners - those with the corresponding hi fi equipment - will be able to benefit from the marginal improvement in sound quality. Our 96kbps AAC+ stream offers a slightly better-quality sound, if you would like to try it."

We need more videos like this John. A fascinating discussion on the merits of good mastering vs, bit rate and audio format. The more people realise this the sooner we can move away from remastered dynamically compressed releases.

Fatiguing masters on lossless file formats will still be fatuiging.

Technology and formats are tools and garbage in / garbage out rules .. so one needs good input, ie good production! The better the tool and the better the input then the better the output - final product!

It could sound even better - you've got a big piece of lint on our stylus!

Yep, I watch videos here of high end audio systems and often they are playing awful recordings that the mastering has ruined, or featuring singers that forced the sound engineers to auto tune and play all sorts of games with. If you cannot hear the difference between good mastering and bad, don't spend $5,000 on a pair of speakers, pay $100 for some Sony bookshelf speakers and call it a day.

excellent ! my friends made me believe that “ THAT SOUND” you are not able to find in new hi res music is purely nostalgia , but I was convinced that my CDs from early 90s actually sounded better

Like I say with all these live records, If I'm going to take the time to experience Stop Making Sense (or the Last Waltz, or Journey Through the Past, or whatever) in my home, and a video is available, why would I not just watch it and take in the visual AND full audio experience? A tape or CD makes sense for portability, but in this day and age (since they invented hi-fi VHS) there's no reason to not just watch it.

My Lou Reed - “New York”, early German CD pressing still sounds best to me than the re-issues and high res remaster..

Hi John, your videos are always great, but this one was outstanding! Please more of these!

Great stuff - and yet having spent DECADES trying to get classical music students to play with enough dynamic variation to convince the live listeners in the back row, it is more than ironic that the next recording producer will probably compress the life out of their efforts, and squash their dynamics to death. If you want to experience dynamic range, try sitting in the middle of an orchestra at full steam...

The sad truth is that whatever format one buys, a dynamically compressed new remastering may be used in all of them, so they literally sound the same. If each format were being used to its full potential, only then would it make sense to compare them, and/or extol the superiority of one over the other.

Impressive video. Compression is/was often used to allow a more impactful result on poor audio systems such as car audio or old portable transistor radios, often in FM. A good example is "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis & the News. In the days is sounded absolutely fabulous on a mono car radio but never achieved the same emotions on a high res system. Perhaps we are going the same way where people increasingly use Sonos speakers and the audiophiles are getting smaller in numbers? Also compressed music I believe costs less bandwidth.

"He's doing God's work" that made me laugh. Thank you for this video. I agree 100%. A crappy recording/engineering/mastering will always sound crappy. Thanks again!

My dream is a SHM 24 bit Cd…..for all my favorite bands.

I can't actually tell without a closer look, but when you show the graphics of the waveforms, it does seem that the lower version could be amplified and still retain the dynamic range you're after, it's just too quiet. Also, if one of the recordings has a lot of interludes with crowd noise, that would be included when the software works out the average dynamic range, so for a more accurate mean, you'd need to remove them.

And I still would like to know what the DR of that first edition in Vinyl is!!! Please!!!

If only mastering engineer Steven Wilson could redo all Moody Blues albums....

Read it on your website. And also it is good to watch for a evening relaxation❤

IDK… I have the ‘84 CD and I’ve been listening to the 2023 mix on Apple Music. Listening to the 2023 vinyl as I write this… subjectively, the ‘84 does sound a bit better but man… the remaster isn’t awful at all. Loving having the whole thing on vinyl. Different strokes for different folks, I guess?

The engineering and mastering makes it huge difference. I've heard some great recordings on vinyl EPS that sound better than the original album versions. Even when the original version is played on much more expensive turntables they don't sound as good as the EP played on lesser equipment. The dynamic range on some of the better mastered CDs from the 80s & 90 are amazing.

Yes. The Loudness Wars is a cultural crime scene. I work in radio. So sound is my love and daily bread. And it's these.remasters of rock & pop that are the hires streaming database. Spend 50k and stream it LOUDALLTHETIME. Even the new 'remaster' of the seminal 1960s Solti / Culshaw Wagner Ring Cycle has compression & hard clipping! On a 24bit 192khz file. 'Baked the masters', retouched with new tools & then it seems a 2020s mastering engineer went...to show its different lets compress & clip an orchestral recording. I've made waveform visual survey of digital versions back to the 1984 CD. As you found with TH the dynamic collapse is profound. Vinyl is not a fidelity medium adding pink noise thru act of needle/groove playback, classic vinyl 'warmth' Forget pops and clicks...pink noise ends it for me. So spending a fortune on the discs & needle playback is absolute fools gold in the audiophile cave. Digital done well has the possibility to capture the full dynamic range of magnetic tape masters. Loudness wars have destroyed that. & metadata and streaming playback are not solving this. Because dynamicaly wrecked remasters are now the source. Of the great rock catalogue only Pink Floyd now preserve DR in HR. The 2011 Hires Queen RM are compressed clipped horrorshows. RM of Prince 1999 & Purple Rain ditto. Sign O the Times RM recently seemed to take criticism on board and preserve original DR. In music the most important thing is the music, performance and its source mastering. If the well is poisoned at mastering source... expensive audiophile chasing is fools gold squared by diminishing hearing over time with age. The irony that those than can afford this chase are doomed not to be able to hear its supposed value is the latest entry in the humanity hubris ledger. But the cultural vandalism of the Loudness Wars on the history of recorded music is a crime.

John, interesting that your current video mirrors much of that from another channel by a mixing engineer David Mellor Audio Masterclass. He also describes the reasoning behind the greater dynamic range on vinyl vs post 1999 CD. It also explains the wide variation in CD volume levels from the 90's. It seems sad that the amazing opportunity to create truly dynamic music on digital media is being lost due to mastering engineers/producers/publishers bent on creating the loudest music

Would be interested to know if the vinyl is better or worse? It is a grey area as to whether modern vinyl has more DR than the CD/digital version or if it uses the same master? It could just be placebo but I find myself gravitating towards vinyl or needle-drops for modern stuff. Also interesting is that the ATMOS mixes seem to have more DR, unfortunately though my main hifi is a stereo setup.

Bagged myself an original early UK CD. What an amazing sounding album!

I seen stop making sense in the theatre 1984 in a small rural town. It was electric, the projectionist turned the movie off at one point and lectured everyone to sit down and stop dancing

When HI-RES stops making sense...? How to go about this...? In my personal opinion, it isn't really about the 'minuscule' sound improvements that Hi-Res provides the listener, but rather the huge amount of storage space Hi-Res takes up on a hard drive... In truth, most people, if given a blind A-B comparison/test of MP3 320kbps vs. any Hi-Res format could not consistently differentiate between the two of them... A lot of these Hi-Res albums consume more than 1GB of space for just one album...!!! Don't get me wrong... I subscribe to a Hi-Res streaming service (Apple Music) and would like to believe that I'm getting the best sound possible, but it's somewhat like those people who smell the wine cork before they pour it down their gullet... it doesn't make any difference, in reality... Great video - Great topic...!!!

In the 1980s there was a CD player by Revox that would allow you to expand or compress the dynamic range of a track. I'm surprised this isn't a standard feature in this day and age. Anyway, provided the mastering didn't damage the data (compression distortion) you can get a less compressed sound using DSP.

I know it has more bit depth than CD's Redbook format but I don't consider anything that is still 44.1K resolution to be worthwhile in terms of being hi res. The sampling rate is unchanged. In terms of bits most technical people consider anything above 20 bit to be pointless anyway. So often these discussions come down to production and quality of manufacture. I've heard CD's that sound better than a less than stellar vinyl pressing even though I'm a big vinyl guy. So many variables, even without getting into some of the issues (reissues? 🙂) that you bring up.

I enjoyed the readable, shorter edition of this review and I enjoyed the video too. Joking aside, years ago I bounced a copy of the VHS to cassette and that faithfully represents the full film with intros and without song edits. I was really annoyed when the very latest came out and doesn’t offer the walk on and intro of David Byrne before playing his tape. I used to buy bootleg tapes of concerts and the best thing about those is the difference in performance, talking to the crowd and tuning before the the song. I digress. Great job as always John.

I have a whole box of CDs from the 80s that are the best sounding Albums you can get. I avoid anything that says "remastered"

Here here! Spot on. Dynamics really matter. Some of the worst recordings I've ever heard have close to zero dynamic range. Completely unnatural artificial just yuck.

Great video. You mentioned you analyzed the 2023 hi-res files, but did not rip the vinyl? Would that make a difference, ie. would a vinyl rip produce a different result? I understand the hi-res files would be the ones applied on the pressing, but does the process to create the vinyl change anything materially for a DR reading?

In 1983, I was the Production Coordinator for a Mattel commercial being filmed at Hollywood Center Studios' lot. (formerly Coppola's old Zoetrope Studios) The Director of the commercial was Jordan Cronenweth who was also the DP. At that point Jordan was best known as the DP for the pivotal Blade Runner movie. Early afternoon of each day, we would wrap for the day and run over to the Pantages to join the other cameramen, Grips and Gaffers who had been prelighting all day in anticipation of that night's performance which was shot for the three nights. Being on that stage with Demme, Jordan and Byrne who was a part of the visuals and creative, was one of the highlights of my career. Being a huge talking Heads fan, I had already purchased tickets for two of the three shows. Being in the audience to see those shows after a couple of pops at the nearby Frolic room was sublime. Looking forward to buying the new 4k, Dolby Atmos DVD.

Great video and reminder - I agree 100%. Recording and mastering quality and choices can absolutely have a greater impact than delivery format. In my library I can think of an album stored as MP3 (MP3 was all that was offered of this particular title) that sounds better in terms of sound quality, compression be damned, than some other albums I own presented via FLAC.

Oh, bolloc**. My audiophile road has just got bumpier 😂

Such precious explanation (and especially about This album versions, I heard it 1st at a friend's place and had so much difficulties to find The right version I heard). Isn't roon giving this info natively ?

I hereby award you a PhD in "Not Making Sense"...

@Darko Audio 100% agree. The recording and the master are the most important factors for the final quality, much more than the format. In the other side, regarding the dynamic range, the vinyl is the physical format more limited.

Really enjoyed this one. It is about time someone started talking about mastering and dynamic range. It is a travesty that for all advancements made most music (IMO at least) sounds worse now than it is did 30 years ago. I cannot imagine record labels stopping the 'Make it louder' request so maybe the best we can hope for is an additional mastering? Kind of surprised that artists are not on this, surely they would want their music to sound as good as it possibly could?

There were analog cassette versions released in 1984 in the US with pretty good dynamic range, one with the LP tracks, and a special edition with "extended" (i.e., not edited) tracks.

Mastering engineers are why we can't have nice things...

You've summed up what I've been doing for the last few years or so...buying old non remastered CDs because they don't make my ears bleed. Of course music from around 1998 onwards is mastered very loud

God damn, John. Sometimes you post a video that just resonates with the nerd me, and this is a great example. Thanks for taking us down the DR rabbit hole. Amazing. Thank you.

The main reason I don’t rely solely on streaming services is because they typically only offer the newest “remastered” editions of a particular album. Try comparing David Bowies Let’s Dance original CD pressing from the 80s to the newest version! Dynamic range is cut in half. Every talk about high bitrate is nonsense! Nobody need anything higher than 16bit anyway but sure 24 bit won’t hurt.

I am doing the laundry and I had to pause and give you a huge HUG because this is VERY important stuff that no one seems to care about these days..back to laundry.