How much LF info on LPs?

Onhwy61, my system is not the only one I have ever heard. Even if it were, how would that be relevent to anything? I am using the same speakers for listening to CDs and LPs. Why would my speakers (of lesser quality than yours) sound better with LPs than with CDs? I doubt the speakers can tell when I am playing an LP rather than a CD so it probably reproduces everything in its range of ability.

The specific error of your statements is that you are wrong about the mediums ability to reproduce the deepest bass. As I mentioned, I have a CD player, an SACD player and a turntable. Each of them retails for about $3500, so they should be fairly equal in quality (one would think). Neither of them are junk anyway. Neither CD nor SACD will play bass as deep as the Sota/Rega/Benz combination.

Do you think that result will change with different speakers? It's the source, not the speakers that determine the signal arriving at the drivers.

I have a hard time beleiving that your TT doesn't sound better than the Sony 333! Am I to beleive that your CD player reproduces deeper bass? I doubt it! Then again I have never heard your system.

To Nrchy,

My point about your speakers, which btw I also own, is that they do not produce deep bass. The Sonys fall off sharpely by mid-40Hz. Such a speaker cannot be used to make any meaningful statement about deep bass. To make myself as clear as possible, by deep bass I am referring to the octave from 20-40Hz. I respect the fact that you are reporting what you hear, which as you state has been formed by listening to more than one system, but I too have heard numerous setups and I come to an opposite conclusion than you have. Over the past few years I have had in my system digital components by Apogee, Goldmund, MSB, Sony, Sonic Frontiers and Wadia. With the exception of the Sony and Sonic Frontiers each of the digital components produced deep bass that equaled the performance of my turntable. The Goldmund and the Wadia slightly bettered the turnatable in this narrow area. You've made a broad statement that the CD medium cannot produce deep bass. My experiences tells me that you're wrong.

Neither of them should be bass limited in useful range ie 20Hz above. But record has higher dynamic range and usually is harmonic rich. Therefore, you feel the impact of bass plus lots of harmonis with a drum without compression due to the "big" dynamic range. A CD can go very deep of course, try organ, but it usually has less hamonics than the sound pick up by a needle. Actually a drum covers not only bass but also lots of info and energy on its rich harmonics, i.e. it not a sine wave. And LP is good at picking up those harmonics (or some may say generating?)

There is no fundamental limit CD can't carry 20Hz data. The "feel" of not much punch is, IMO is due to the limited dynamic resolution and the less harmonics in CD playback. That's why SACD will have more punch than CD. And your ears tell you that LP gives you the most "WOW" punch. And it is a closer one to the live drum beat in orchestra.

How about keeping the stylus in the groove with the kind of excursion required for deep bass at real volumes? The cd has less dynamic range than an lp? That statement is surely based on perceived dynamic range through casual listening. Insofar as drums not being a sine wave is concerned, please elaborate. I actually believed that it was a all a sine wave at any given moment in time which was the total of all the sounds being reproduced, whether drums, kettles or Stradivari. Then again, I come from a time long ago and a place far away. I seek enlightenment.

If you doubt the exsistence of LF info on LP, I would direct your attention to several recordings that prove that it IS there:
DAFOS - Mickey Hart/Airto/Flora Purim. Reference Recordings 45 RPM

Respighi/Church Windows - Also 45 RPM Reference Recordings

Stravinsky/Firebird - Sheffield Labs Los Angeles Symphony

Pink Floyd - The Final Cut (side 2 track 1 "Get your filthy hands off my desert")

These are but a few. If your stylus can track them, your amp has the oompf that your speakers need, you will get all the LF info you need, or, can hear. Any of the above are great ways to determine if your arm and stylus are set up correctly. There are passages in these LPs that are visceral, in that you can feel that "punch in the chest" as your speakers push the wavefront out at you.