richard tollerton

As a guy who got indirectly dragged into this discussed by Steven
(thanks for nothing! :P), I'd like to point out that there are several
records I own where real music seems to be obscured by the surface
noise of the records.

The most prominent example I like to throw out is Shellac's "Excellent
Italian Greyhound", believed to be mastered almost identically between
the vinyl and CD releases (and the CD comes for free with the vinyl,
and it should still be available at record stores, so it's triply easy
to compare!). On "Genuine Lulabelle", the tape print-through on Steve
Albini's voice is quite audible when listening to the CD version in a
suitably quiet environment. It's drowned in the noise on the vinyl
version. I bought this new in 2007, and it was cut on the Abbey Road
DMM lathe and produced entirely on tape and otherwise subjected to
Albini's TLC, so I think this is an eminently reasonable example of a
real record produced to modern specs that just doesn't cut the mustard
compared to CD.

If you want an example of "real" music that is affected by the reduced
dynamic range of vinyl, as opposed to print-through: My 1970 Mahler 3
by Horenstein on Nonesuch (still sealed when I bought it!) has solo
instrument parts which are quite difficult to tell out due to, I
believe, the noise of the medium. My Mahler 1 on vinyl has similar
issues. Besides some experimental electronic I have (aeo3/3hae) I've
never encountered anything like that on CD.

If that's not clear-cut personal experience of the reduced dynamic
range of vinyl cutting into real-world signal fidelity, I don't know
what is.