It's true from time to time. Low's last digital releases are actually unlistenable due to heavy-handed compression, but the vinyl seems to have been spared.
I had to record the vinyl to get usable digital files.
The loudness and compression on Low's last couple of albums is very much deliberate, so it's surprising that the vinyl doesn't have it. Though I heard similar claims about Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, which was also intensely compressed for artistic effect.
The reason it was backed off for the vinyl master is most likely due to physical limitations of the medium. If the audio channels are too loud (wide) there is risk that the needle will jump out of the groove.
There's compression and distortion for sure on the vinyl, but when you look at the waveform on the digital it's right up to the max. It completely changes the sound.
The thing is, vinyl (and tape) typically can't reproduce waveforms like that accurately, so it's difficult to compare. You can take a hyper-compressed master, cut it to vinyl or record it to tape, then play it back in to a computer, and it'll look different and less "brickwalled".
I dunno if you’ve listened to these records in question but it’s very, very obviously for artistic effect. They’ve discussed it in interviews and stuff. Low wasn’t looking to get radio play with fractured collages of distorted noise. The “vinyl can’t reliably reproduce these waveforms” explanation someone else suggested makes the most sense.
That's just not true. I just had my band's album mastered; we weren't in the room or anything but the mastering engineer asked us directly questions about how we wanted the record to sound and we got final approval on it.
It really does on some records, if you’re interested check out some comparisons on YouTube. Many times it’s subtle eq tweaks, granted, and that won’t much matter. But a lot of older rock and pop records for example go from being super dynamic and well produced to completely crushed with boosted bass and treble to ‘modernize’ the sound.
You can see some examples of how dynamic range (they don’t track ‘mastering’ overall) varies across releases on this site: https://dr.loudness-war.info/
Sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. Many releases get mastered separately for digital and for vinyl, and one or both of them often does “change much”. Usually the brickwall limiting (among other things) on the digital master.
I absolutely know what I'm talking about and have released multiple records. I don't think you know what mastering is and how subtle it is. You're thinking of a separate mix which, yes, does sound quite different.
Just because you chose to have subtle mastering applied doesn’t mean that the commercial records we’re discussing have done the same, particularly for their digital releases, which is why they sound different. If you listen to vinyl versus digital releases of certain albums, it is obvious. Stop spreading misinformation.
I had to record the vinyl to get usable digital files.