No offense TLS but your experience with vinyl is limited to classical music. I don't think the loudness wars seen in CD and mp3s and the like has made it to the classical genre as it has with most of the other genres. The CD is a better medium. I have no arguement there. However, the recording industry with the ensueing loudness wars has greatly diminished the dynamic range of the music found on today's CDs. I can take as an example, my copy of Tom Petty's "MOJO" which I have on vinyl and compare it to FLAC download which I also have and there is next to no difference in dynamic range.
I've heard dbx encoded LPs and they are as dynamic as a CD.
That is all true, however you reinforce my point that the main issue with CDs is mastering. With wide dynamic masters, that I have recorded with my own mics, it is a challenge to get it to fit in the CD parameters. You have to take a lot of care.
Part of the reason that pop music has little dynamic range is because the original material has no dynamic range.
At a recent AES meeting I went to a demonstration of Abelton Live at the Minnesota Media Institute. This ubiquitous program blurs the line between live, recoding and DJ.
However the point is the program has a huge number of looped sound samples, that can be manipulated in all sorts of ways. However one thing you can not do with sampled sound is to vary the dynamic range, except by adding and subtracting voices. I thought the software and screen for adding and subtracting voices was awkward and obtuse.
I told the company rep, they should sit down at the console of a pipe organ, with computer stop action, with a good organist to see how you do it properly. I offered to take him out to Mahatomedi, to see how it is really done.
With the extensive use of Abelton live combined with Pro Tools I expect pop music to descend even further into the basement by leaps and bounds. With the way they are putting material together now and sensible dynamic range is virtually impossible.
I'm really glad I get no pleasure whatever from that genre of music and frankly I'm at a loss to see how anybody can.
What was more depressing was that of the large number of students present could fathom the importance of dynamics to music. I felt like someone from another age, which I probably am.