Dynamic Range Of Vinyl Record

Fdr vinyl our full dynamic range releases were made in response to the so called loudness wars with the dynamic range of music being restricted more and more in an effort to make it sound louder.

Dynamic range of vinyl record.

This number represents the difference between the peak decibel level on a recording and the recording s average loudness. Pcm of any flavor has a flat response to fs. Dust particles in the grooves of an lp cause crackles and ticks that are present and audible no matter how well you clean the record. The unofficial dynamic range database uses a sliding scale from 1 to 20 1 being the worst 20 being the best to rank the dynamic quality of each of the recordings they list.

And while most of what i discovered was correct some vinyl releases are intentionally mastered with more dynamic range it turns out some of the. Vinyl s dynamic range is dependant on frequency because vinyl doesn t have a flat maximum output curve. Lp s surface noise which is responsible for the poor dynamic range is mainly concentrated below 500hz where the noise level is around 50db. These releases on the other hand deliver music at its optimum sound level dynamically leaving the listener to decide on the playback level.

That s why snare drums cymbal splashes and other loud instruments have so much more punch in vinyl recordings. Vinyl can still push music to the limits of its dynamic range 55 70db but it often shies away from doing so in order to maintain sound quality. The difference between the loudest and softest sounds an lp can play is about 70 decibels db. Analog fm broadcasts rarely have a dynamic range exceeding 50 db.

Cd 16bit on the other hand can achieve 96 db dynamic range. The dynamic range of human hearing is roughly 140 db. The dynamic range of music as normally perceived in a concert hall doesn t exceed 80 db and human speech is normally perceived over a range of about 40 db. There s very little compression so the loudest parts of those sounds often stand out like you d expect them to at a live performance.

Yes vinyl was noisier. When i cut a master for vinyl and a cd master from the same digital master tape they sounded pretty much the same except for the noise floor. Under theoretically ideal conditions this could perhaps improve to 120 db. The dynamic range of a direct cut vinyl record may surpass 70 db.

With the above in mind i began exploring why some vinyl records have greater dynamic range rightly concluding that mastering lay at the heart of the issue. Consumer analog cassette tapes have a dynamic range of 60 to 70 db. The dynamic range of vinyl when evaluated as the ratio of a peak sinusoidal amplitude to the peak noise density at that sine wave frequency is somewhere around 80 db. Cds can handle over 90 db.

In practical terms this means that cds have more than 10 times the dynamic range of lps. Analog studio master tapes can have a dynamic range of up to 77 db. Vinyl records typically yield 55 65 db.