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To: Sans-Culotte
I listen mainly to classical music, and one thing I really like about CDs is the broader dynamic range. So, if a passage in a Beethoven symphony gets really quiet, the next passage when it gets really loud is more dramatic on the CD because the distance from quiet to loud is so great.

A valid point, but it also depends on your listening environment - a living room isn't a concert hall after all. I mostly find the 70 dB or so of dynamic range the LP allows (vs. the 120 dB CDs can have) sufficient, and as I have neighbors, setting the volume for the quiet passages sometimes makes me scramble to reduce it when it gets loud anyway...so some compression can be good.

I listen to both LPs and CDs, and the amount of detail a good analog rig can scratch out of those grooves is truly amazing when you look at the transducer and amplification chain. My Ortofon cartridge has a nominal output of 0.12 mV which is about 60 dB over the lowest signals it can reproduce, so you're into the nanovolt range that needs to be amplified and micrometers of needle movement - and it works to a degree that rivals modern digital technology. How is that not amazing?

54 posted on 08/29/2015 8:41:49 AM PDT by Moltke
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To: Moltke
I listen to both LPs and CDs, and the amount of detail a good analog rig can scratch out of those grooves is truly amazing when you look at the transducer and amplification chain.

There's no doubt that LPs can sound good. I still have my old turntable from the 80's, and have kept some of my LPs. I took such pristine care of them that I am still amazed at how relatively free they are of snap-crackle-pop. However, one had to treat them as museum pieces to keep them that way. And they'd eventually wear out regardless due to the diamond stylus cutting into the grooves. For most pop music, the limited dynamic range was not a problem. As the interviwees stated, it could be an enhancement depending on the sound one was after. But I just don't think an LP can reproduce the explosion of sound that occurs at a moment like the opening of the last movement of Mahler's 2nd symphony.

I will say though that I enjoyed record buying more when they were on LP. I loved the big album sleeves and notes I could read on the back.

56 posted on 08/29/2015 8:57:56 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte (''Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small''~ Theodore Dalrymple)
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