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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

The format is not the limitation, but audio engineers (for major studios anyway) tend to crank the volume up on CDs more often than vinyl releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

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The irony is that digital audio has much more dynamic range than vinyl, and yet modern productions use much less of it in order to psychologically sound better / louder.

This is the main point I take from the linked article, although it probably doesn't give enough context for everyone to do the same. One of the big improvements music-lovers were hoping for in move from vinyl to CD was the improved dynamic range on CD. It is indeed ironic that the move to CD/digital provided increased dynamic range, yet the trend of producers has been to use less dynamic range than before.

I was once told that when mastering for vinyl you have to be careful with extremes because it can cause the needle to jump off the record.

That's frequency extremes. So the high and low ends of the frequency range are rolled off. Also wide stereo in the bass region can cause the needle to jump, so either the bass needs to be reduced in volume or made mono/as-close-to-mono as possible.

Dynamic range is less of a problem.

This problem is mentioned in the article.

"Mastering engineer Bob Ludwig created ultra-loud master of Led Zeppelin II, but his version was pulled when it skipped on a record player owned by Atlantic boss Ahmet Ertegün’s daughter"

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