This is often true but it has very little to do with the physical medium. Modern CDs are notorious for being mastered with the dynamic range squished and loudness pushed past clipping. That makes it sound more impressive on an ipod with stock headphones or in a car with road noise but produces irritating artifacts on decent stereos.
LPs, because DJs won't stand for these shenanigans, are almost always mastered properly. CDs mastered in the 80s are also usually fine, which is why you sometimes see such insane prices on used Rolling Stones discs.
Posted Sep 4, 2011 23:45 UTC (Sun) by foom (subscriber, #14868)
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It's really too bad that more car radios don't have a dynamic range compression knob. I often listen to music in the car, and it's basically impossible to hear correctly mastered CDs...
