Volume levels

@asvjerry My cat found my in ear assistance devices carelessly left on my desk, so clearly every thing that then happened was my fault. One of the devices must still be on the feline mothership for study (or, it might have been in the cat box...) and the other miraculously appeared on the living room floor months later. Smudge has not laid a paw on any speaker grills, so she can stay.   for now   pending further review

Thank you, @cleeds  for showing me the dynamic range database. Not something I would have stumbled on by myself, it was very interesting... Is there a similar database for compression?  ;)

my mamma said, "volume is as volume does"

What about the music itself and the recording itself  Some music (I'm think classical music and acoustic jazz) has much more black space and dark gray, as it were, than pop in general.  Some recordings (and I'm thinking predominantly pop) squeeze the life out of the music by overusing compression.  This affects the volume required to experience the music properly.

@cleeds +1 This was demonstrated by John Darko on his YouTube channel. Recently remastered digital versions of an album had far less dynamic range than the original LP.  Yes as others note, in theory, CDs can have a dynamic range of 96 dB, but that is just the "container".  If the album is overly compressed by the record label due to the loudness wars, then that "container" might as well have a dynamic range of about 20 dB. Sad. But that is where we are. 

As Paul McGowan of PS Audio has said, he'd love to get a chance to record an artist like Adele and do it right compared to the crappy way her last album was foisted on us.  It is almost unlistenable. In fact, I gave my copy away. 

This thread is helping me understand the stakes.

IF we are comparing good, non-compressed recordings only, then the advantages of digital over vinyl are substantial. 

IF we are looking instead at recordings subjected to the "loudness wars and compression" then it may be that one medium or another has the edge.

hilde45

... IF we are comparing good, non-compressed recordings only, then the advantages of digital over vinyl are substantial ...

If you’re talking about commercial recordings, it is an exceptionally rare commercial release that does not include some compression. That’s one of the reasons that I enjoy making my own recordings and - get ready for this - many benefit from slight amounts of cautious compression. Just ask anyone who has experience with recording.

Regardless, LP contains a potential advantage over CD when it comes to HF frequency response. There's a lot of measured data supporting that, so it's dicey to say digital's advantage over analog is necessarily "substantial." It isn't quite that simple, although let's face it - establishing the value of relative differences is really subjective.