Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dire Straits Available Now
These comments are taken from a reddit thread that Geoff Edgers and I were on years ago talking about Hot Stampers, to an audience that seemed to have very little experience with high quality audio.
Discussing the difference I hear between CDs and vinyl pressings, I offered the opinions you see below. We might have been talking about Brothers in Arms; I honestly don’t remember.
For those of you newer to the blog, please keep in mind that, unlike a great many fans of analog, I actually like the sound of the hundreds of CDs I own and make a point to play them regularly for enjoyment. Properly mastered CDs can sound shockingly good.
In my experience, a good CD will wipe the floor with the vast majority of Heavy Vinyl records being made today. If you are buying modern remastered records, I highly recommend you stop doing so and instead make the effort to find a good CD player and buy vintage — and even gold — CDs.
My comments:
Well, a too short version would be something like:
On the vinyl and on the CD the tonality should be identical.
If it is not you have problems and you need to do some work to find them and fix them.
Assuming correct tonality, the CD should be big, lively and clear, assuming you have a good CD player and a good CD.
The record should be more resolving of fine details, more solid, more real, more involving, more alive, more relaxed and more immersive — if you have a good front end (table, arm, cartridge, phono stage, all set up right, which is extremely rare in my experience).
When records get loud they build naturally in volume. CDs rarely do, and never to the same extent and in the same way as a good vinyl pressing. They kind of “jump,” and you really hear it when you play a dynamic record against the CD.
The best records bloom. CDs don’t really bloom much.
Records are 3D if you have a good pressing and a good table in a good room. CDs, notably less so.
Anyone can say their CD player does everything right. I have not heard one that did and I doubt that such an animal exists.
Good records on good turntables raise the bar. CDs struggle to reach that bar.
But if you like them, I say more power to you. I like records and CDs, the former more than the later of course. More power to me.
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