Spend some time among audio enthusiasts online and you will soon be confronted with the unassailable truth that the only way to truly experience Radiohead's classic 1997 album OK Computer is on vinyl. Not just any vinyl, the original UK Parlophone vinyl pressing. This is because purportedly the vinyl cut is not as much a victim of the loudness war as the original compact disc release. Screenshots of dynamic-looking waveforms and dynamic range analysis scores are used to bolster this claim. Of course, comments of effusive praise are usually all that is needed to affirm this Truth -- often along the lines of "the vinyl master blows the CD out of the water!" I mean, just take a look at those DR scores!
What is implicit in all of this is that the program material that was used for the vinyl cut was mastered with more dynamic range than the digital CD release. This means that less peak limiting and dynamic range compression was employed for the "vinyl master" than the "CD master." But is this really the case? I have never seen specific evidence of this from the artists and engineers involved in the album's production, unlike, say with the recent remix of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Silence from Nigel Godrich and Chris Blair notwithstanding, vinyl superiority bias (it's analog! no digital stair steps! you can't cut loud masters to vinyl! etc...) and high DR scores and spiky vinyl rip waveforms serve to form a feedback loop of confirmation bias that clouds what we expect to hear, what we think we hear, and what we're actually hearing.
What if I told you that you can turn the original OK Computer CD (DR7) into DR10 (like the vinyl rips) without adding any dynamic range by using simple high/low pass filters to make the bass mono (such as what might be done during a standard vinyl cut)? I have shown previously that using a filter for rolling off some bass content can yield high DR scores and dynamic-looking waveforms (see also: this video). This method of making the bass mono, which I outline below via screenshots, achieves a very similar result using "The Tourist" as an example:
Multi's Mono Bass Mix DR Analysis
foobar2000 1.3.8 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-07-06 18:57:39
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Analyzed: ? / ?
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DR Peak RMS Duration Track
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DR10 -2.78 dB -15.27 dB 4:44 ?-01 Airbag
DR10 -2.62 dB -16.33 dB 6:24 ?-02 Paranoid Android
DR9 -2.95 dB -13.99 dB 4:28 ?-03 Subterranean Homesick Alien
DR9 -2.89 dB -16.62 dB 4:25 ?-04 Exit Music (For A Film)
DR10 -3.25 dB -15.35 dB 4:59 ?-05 Let Down
DR10 -2.26 dB -14.49 dB 4:22 ?-06 Karma Police
DR10 -5.74 dB -18.78 dB 1:57 ?-07 Fitter Happier
DR10 -2.72 dB -14.17 dB 3:51 ?-08 Electioneering
DR10 -2.55 dB -14.94 dB 4:45 ?-09 Climbing Up The Walls
DR10 -3.24 dB -15.20 dB 3:49 ?-10 No Surprises
DR9 -3.50 dB -14.22 dB 4:20 ?-11 Lucky
DR10 -3.14 dB -15.86 dB 5:27 ?-12 The Tourist
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Number of tracks: 12
Official DR value: DR10
Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 1411 kbps
Codec: PCM
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Without going into too much detail about the process, what I've done is created two files, rolled off the bass in one, rolled off the high frequency content in the other, made the low frequency content mono, and then mixed that back into the original file from which the flow frequency content was rolled off. Thus we end up with the same frequency content overall as the original file (perhaps a slight bump around our chosen crossover point for the new mix), but with a dramatically different looking waveform and DR analysis. In fact, it looks just like a vinyl rip! But how does it sound? I've prepared a few clips from "The Tourist" for comparative purposes (level-matched, of course):
The vinyl rip will always sound different for myriad reasons; the biggest differences here are some high-frequency roll off (thus the 'warm' vinyl sound), perhaps some pleasant harmonic distortion, and how the stereo image manifests due to the limitations of the medium and playback equipment (one may prefer these sonic characteristics, but vinyl isn't "better" in this regard from the perspective of audio fidelity). Never mind all that; instead, listen carefully to the balance of the elements in the mix.
Remember, the issue here is dynamic range. I've shown that the normal process of filtering can result in the same kinds of dynamic-looking waveforms and high DR scores associated with vinyl rips. However, I haven't added any dynamic range. It only looks like I did. Of course, the mono bass mix does sound subtly different than the original CD -- how could it not? To me, the mono bass mix sounds just as "dynamic" as any vinyl rip I've heard of this album (I also own a copy of the Parlophone pressing).
So is OK Computer really DR10 on vinyl?