[cacophony]

this thread is pretty much off-topic at this point so i figured i'd go ahead and include this here:

after several critical comparisons between the CD and vinyl of "playing the angel," i've come to a few realizations:

yes, the vinyl transfer is different. the mix is more subtle, the stereo field a little more balanced and precise. there's a banging-your-head-against-the-desk feeling to the depth of field on the CD version where everything is jockeying to be at the front of the line. very shallow. the depth of field on the vinyl version is, for lack of a better word, deeper. elements recede and prioritize themselves in a much more pleasing way. i think "damaged people" is the most outstanding example of these differences.

that being said, a lot of the gritty distortion and clipping is still apparent on the vinyl version. it is by no means a clip-free transfer. you can definitely hear where it's worse on the CD, like the outtro to "nothing's impossible" (the farty sounding bass on the CD version is fart-less on the vinyl version) but there's still a lot of nasty sounding grit on the vinyl transfer. there are clips on martin's backup vocal in the chorus of "nothing's impossible" that are audible and identical in both versions. and the chorus of "john the revelator" is equally harsh on the ear on both versions.

it sounds to me the clipping wasn't necessarily all in the CD mastering process, which is what the debate seems to be about. i feel like i'm hearing clipping that goes back to the layback of the original master. whatever they sent on to the mastering house already had some pretty bad distortion on it (some intentional, i feel, and some not). the CD mastering process exacerbated the problem by compressing the hell out of the final product and cramming every element into your ear at the same damn loudness. it's like putting spotty, blemished skin beneath a magnifying glass. the vinyl, on the other hand, acts like a soft vaselined lens, making the blemishes sound smoother and less noticable.

but the blemishes are still there.

all IMHO, of course.