> Vinyl literally has less than half the dynamic range of CD
A lot less than half.
It's around 20-30db and every 10db is a factor of 10. The CD has between 100-1000x more dynamic range.
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That is a false way of saying it. Because then you are unpacking what dBs are, which is fascinating, but not how humans perceive sound. We use dBs exactly because it approaches human experience of sound better (although still shitty) than sound pressure would.
A better logarithmic system would use base 2, I think phons tried to popularize that, but signal processing calculation with a base 2 log is less convenient than a base 10 log. So I think that is the reason.
For who wants to know: sound perception doubles every 10dB so. 30db of dynamic range is about 8 times as much dynamic range from the perceptual perspective.
> That is a false way of saying it
As an audio engineer I'm well aware of how decibels work and why we use them.
You're talking about subjective perception but I'm talking about objective measurements.
Objectively we care about the amount of information in the signal, not air movement. Air movement is just a medium which conveys information. It's not just "subjective perception", it's the meaning of the process.
I'm stating an objective measurable fact not arguing about semantics or meaning, whatever that is for you.
They're all objective, just different coordinate systems. There's nothing less objective about a different coordinate transform.
This whole thread is about subjective perception, other than yours
That's your interpretation.
When someone claims that vinyl has less than half the DR of a CD then I think it's important to clarify how big of a difference it actually is. I would imagine HN would care about 16bits vs aprox 10bits of dynamic range.
Pedantry isn't interesting.