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▲ sam1714 2 hours ago

Like all analog formats, vinyl has a non-linear response. Things like total amplitude and frequency content affect noise and distortion when reproduced. Another factor is that it's a constant angular velocity medium, so the response is different at the beginning than the end. These are factors that a good mastering engineer takes into account.

This occurs in the digital world as well. When we went to DVDs, the studios had encoders/authoring engineers, who tweaked compression parameters per scene, as compression is another non-linear process. For example, they might apply a small amount of blur on a dark scene where film grain trips up the compression.

Eta: Apple provides the exact pipeline [1] they use for their services so the sound engineer can listen to the output and adjust.

[1] https://www.apple.com/apple-music/apple-digital-masters/