It’s easy enough to run at home and a lot of premium pressure isn’t heavy on it.
Tom “Grover” Biery has spent the past two decades at the center of the vinyl commercial renaissance. Warner Bros. grew up.’ vinyl revenue from $300,000 to over $5 million in 18 months, co-founded Record Store Day, and today produces one-step audiophile pressings, which many people consider the best of vinyl art.
His latest passion, however, points directly to the CD realm.
His Red Line Is Not A Format
Biery produced one-step pressings, AKA the most meticulous vinyl format, from digital sources. And he doesn’t go for it.
“I’m not a purist. I love my vinyl,” Biery told the Vinyl Guide podcast. “I made one step from the digital source. No problem.”
That loyalty is important because the audiophile vinyl world has spent decades treating analog tape as sacred. They believe that if the recording is not taken from the original master tape, something important is lost in the digital translation.
While his work is within that tradition, he is less concerned with the source format than with the decisions made behind it.
However, where he draws the line is compression, not formatting. Professionals where engineers sacrifice dynamic range for volume are off the table, but “if it’s a digital source, fine,” as he puts it. Recordings tracked in Pro Tools can get the same impression as one taken from quarter-inch tape.
On the other hand, much of the acclaimed recording of the 1990s and 2000s was done on digital platforms, and traditional labels ignored that catalog because, as Biery put it, “a lot of people are critical of that.”
Where Mastering Went to War
Biery’s framework raises an obvious question. If performance is what matters, why aren’t all CDs?
The simple answer is: because many did not know how to care. During the 1990s and 2000s, master engineers continued to push the dynamic range on CDs to make records sound louder, taking advantage of the psychological fact that loud music equally benefits from each comparison. This trend, called the loudness war, created an arms race.
CDs that have gone through that process have lost Biery quality awards significantly. Their dynamic range is flattened, and no amount of premium compression can restore what was destroyed by mastering.
But broadcasting quickly killed the motivation. Services now normalize playback to around -14 LUFS, meaning over-compressed tracks are automatically rejected while professional recordings retain their full range. The war is over, and the CDs that preceded it or escaped its worst effects sound exactly like what Biery describes.
Biery illustrated the point with an example that predates the format debate entirely.
“Look, you look at the Robert Johnsons, all the Robert Johnson songs we have are found on the 78 record. So the tape source is an indication but it is not equal to the high standard,” he explained.
That recording, captured on shellac with worse specifications than CD or vinyl, remains among the most revered in music history. Biery applies the same logic to his production decisions.
Ten Times the Price, Same King
The price difference between vinyl and CD tells the whole story. At current retail prices, that difference is staggering.
In that spread, vinyl should be more forgiving than playing. The premium also buys the item, the shortage, and the process after the pressure.
Meanwhile, audiophile vinyl has its reasons. Biery said single-step records typically cost $100 for a single LP and $125 for a double, which puts them out of the realm of casual listening.
And the process demands it. Each stamp wears out after 500 to 750 copies, so a pressing like the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, limited to 6,000 copies, required cutting nine different lacquers. That meant that the craftsmanship had to be repeated across multiple lacquers, multiplying the single most expensive part of production.
He doesn’t pretend that economics favors vinyl for every listener, though. The cost is real, and you’re the first to admit it. So for most consumers, the question is not whether a premium pressing sounds better than a CD but whether it sounds ten times better.
“Do you like the record or not? I mean, I buy dollar records that I like and I buy $75 records. I wonder why I buy them?” he said.
The enthusiasm of his CD sharpens the evaluation of the value. Vinyl can make sense, but the extra cost still has to buy enough valuable information.
$25 million proof
The Biery draft did not appear in a vacuum. The audiophile world was already forced to confront its format’s assumptions, and the lesson was expensive.
In July 2022, Mike Esposito of ‘In’ Groove record store in Phoenix revealed that Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, one of the most respected names in audiophile vinyl, was using a digital conversion step in its mastering process while marketing recordings as all analog.
The company’s engineers confirmed that DSD, a high-resolution digital format, was used in all of MoFi’s One-Step records. Then followed a class action, affecting nearly 40,000 customers, with a fine north of $25 million settled in October 2023.
This quote is important here for one reason: listeners were praising those MoFi records for years before they knew the digital step involved. It doesn’t excuse the lack of transparency, but it reinforces Biery’s point that execution can be more important to the ear than the analog-versus-digital label.
That’s why Biery doesn’t use MoFi as a gotcha, since his framework predates the debate by nearly two decades. In fact, his reaction to MoFi itself was remarkably generous.
“I’ve lost respect for MoFi in this process because I know them – I still trust them. They’re like a chef, right? And they’re going to bring me food. I hope they’re going to give me good food,” he said.
If the food is good, the ingredient list is secondary. It is this concept that leads him to hi-fi CDs.
Vinyl’s Insider Sends You to a CD Session
The builder of the commercial revival of vinyl is now sending people to the CD area, but he sees no contradiction.
He still produces one-step pressings because vinyl itself is important to listeners who appreciate the substance, engineering, and limited-edition artistry that goes into each run. It’s not just that those listeners are paying for high-quality sound. Instead, premium buys culture, creativity, and scarcity.
Under his framework, the sound quality comes from the master first. Vinyl adds to the experience, but it doesn’t automatically fall into disrepute.
That leaves a genuine tension in the middle of his career. He produces vinyl for people who want the visual artifact and the pressing process behind it, and he champions CDs for people who want sound without the markup.
But his assessment of quality is easier than the format of the battles allows.
“If it shocks you sitting on the beach with AirPods, you’ve hit the spot,” he said.