About the vinyl: I'm not an audiophile, but I'm just curious: Since the EP was recorded on digital, doesn't it defeat the purpose from an audio quality perspective of a vinyl release? In my [limited] understanding, the reason some prefer vinyl is because it retains the full fidelity of an analog recording, whereas there is always going to be some loss of fidelity with digital, even if it's not heard because you are recording at stupid high sample rates.
Or is the appeal in the way vinyl recreates the frequency spectrum, in other words, giving a certain "sound"? (For example, how Rob's bass may sound more defined when played back on vinyl, even though it's cut from the same master as the CD and download versions.)
I am an audiophile and I've recorded and produced a good bit of professional work at this point.
It mostly depends on the mastering job in the "CD vs. Vinyl" debate. Generally speaking you master audio for CD/DD (digital distribution) considerably louder than you do (well, can) for vinyl. If you pressed vinyl with the same loudness that a CD has, the needle would just all over the record.
Now, when you're pushing more and more of a finite signal (as in, recording digitally) one of the first things that starts giving you issue is any loud transients, like bass drums, lower toms, and in some cases snare drums, and also any sustained bass, like a bass guitar primarily or potentially an electric guitar depending on tone (if we're limiting ourselves to "rock" here). The LOW bass is generally rolled off as much as possible before you start really doing a lot of mastering work with compressors, limiters, exciters, etc. as to avoid crushing them up against your peak.
So, for vinyl, you don't have to worry quite as much about crushing that out into distortion in your master since you're mastering for a much lower loudness. This is what gives rise to most people saying that vinyl sounds "warmer" than anything digital. It's usually simply because there is more low bass and low mids in the mix.
As for the claim that it gets you closer to the original quality signal that was recorded and CDs are very limited, ehhh, mostly bullshit. It matters a lot more to a cat than to a human. A considerable amount of so-called "fidelity" is captured and represented in the higher mid and treble regions where vinyl starts to not be able to reproduce vibrations of size (the higher the frequency, the smaller the "bump" on the vinyl material).
That makes sense. What about DVD audio? Why didn't that take off?
I remember I was looking for the Core DVD-A a while back and could never find it.
Because in general most people are either deaf or don't give a flying shit. Most people can't hear the difference between a 128kbps .MP3 and a CD. Almost nobody can hear the difference between a CD and a DVD-A. There is something to be said for 24-bit/96k audio causing less "listening fatigue" but you'll find just as many arguments against it as for it.
So the TL;DR here is CD and vinyl use different masters. Vinyl ends up being much "quieter" and usually contains more of the lower frequencies of the recording.
