[Steve King]

"Trevor" wrote in message
...

"ChrisCoaster" wrote in message
...
I have for the last week borrowed several dozen CDs from the local
library and am dismayed to find that even many 1980s era first-gen CDs
of musicians from WW2 up to that point have had some loudness
processing(compression, remastering, remixing) done to them.

Welcome to the 20th century :-)

The only way to hear this stuff properly is if you still have the
same albums on vinyl!

Nope, since ALL vinyl discs had some processing, intentional and
otherwise, (compression, bass roll off, distortion, rumble, wow, flutter,
FR errors etc) the only way to hear what it sounds like on the original
master tape is to listen to the original master tape. Of course that CAN
be transferred to CD now WITHOUT any further change (not often is of
course) but it NEVER could be with vinyl. (and still can't)

Trevor.

I don't think that's right. Or, at least IMO, it is exaggerated. In my
second studio engineering job in 1966 I spent my first year mostly in the
laquer channel, as we called it then. For the first few months using a
Scully lathe, a Neumann monaural cutting head, driven by a custom amplifier
(tubes), fed from a chain with a modified Ampex 300 deck, a Fairchild 660
limiter, and a Conax high frequency limiter. Later, we switched to a
Westrex stereo cutting head, driven by a Westrex amplifier, Firchild 670,
and dual Conax. We also had a range of patchable EQ, mostly Pultec and
Cinema Engineering. We had one approach to mastering if we were cutting a
master for a 45 rpm single for airplay, another for the same song for the
release version, and a completely different approach for cutting a reference
acetate for the producer to take home for evaluation of the mix. For the
latter we used practically no limiting, minimal EQ or none. Getting level
on the disk was not an issue, just the opposite of what we did for airplay
(DJ Pressings), where noise and the restricted frequency response of AM
radio was an issue. The reference acetates didn't have to have a lot of
level to overcome noise, because the reference disc was only expected to be
played a few times. Those discs sounded great. Much closer to the master
tape than you'd probably believe. System errors of wow, flutter, and rumble
were pretty much insignificant on well maintained equipment, except on the
lowest levels of classical music.

Steve King