Re: Sound
One question is why CDs are mastered with such awful "hot" (compressed) sound?
It's simply because "it's what the market expects". It's very instructive to look at the oscillogram of "Brothers In Arms" from the 1985 CD and the re-released 2011 version. The later one is compressed and clipped to hell. If the 1985 release had been mastered like that, CD probably wouldn't have taken off as a medium!
Mastering to vinyl is a real skill. I've done it, and I've seen it done properly by a real mastering engineer - there's no comparison! With CD, it's just a case of crank it up to 11 and let the digital clipping take care of the overshoots. The distortion on modern CDs is disgusting and most of them are unlistenable. I'd rather put up with the surface noise, clicks and record wear distortion of vinyl than listen to the modern recorded CD rubbish.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
