Best Bass-Vinyl or Digital?

[AD Audio]

OK, a client if mine popped along for his new AD Audio Dac with valve output stage last week and he made the statement that he reckoned 'digital does bass better than vinyl'. Now, I build phono stages for folk and get to hear a lot of high end vinyl systems and that's not my experience. My own vinyl rig is very modest-a Rega Planar 3 with RB300-but it is definitely not bass shy and pumps out a very decent bass line and kick drums kick hard. OK, digital may do some of the 'trick' very low dub bass lines better but overall IMO vinyl wins.

What do others think?

[Pigmy Pony]

I think it'll turn into another vinyl vs digital fisticuffs. I personally prefer the bass from my Monarch/X200/2M Black to what my Densen CD player does, but I could even be convincing myself of this to justify the outlay! And with so many variables in analogue and digital replay, surely determining the superiority of vinyl over digital or vice versa would be all but impossible?

[Clive]

I find tight modern electronic bass is better with digital - Kraftwerk / The Man Machine (live) is one of my references. For truly deep bass, digital should win too as vinyl's at a technical disadvantage. For acoustic (eg double bass) I prefer vinyl as it has for greater texture and acoustic - however this is mostly with vintage recordings. At a cerebral level digital is better for bass but with passionate and atmospheric music I find vinyl bass more deeply pleasing.

Which is the winner depends on an individual's preferences I guess.

[Pigmy Pony]

Clive's reply is much better and I agree on all points - Stuff like Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Faithless etc I have CD's, where other types of music using 'real' instruments (jazz, female vocalists) I always choose vinyl versions.

[Jac Hawk]

i'd agree with what has already been posted CD wins on the deepest bass but looses out with other aspects of the recording, physics also comes into play with vinyl with early recordings having the bass limited to avoid the needle literally loosing track of the music and jumping off the record, obviously it's much better nowadays but the physics are still there.

[Gazjam]

Depends on the kit I s’pose, prefer my digital for bass, but mainly because it sounds like the turntable but maybe a little bit tighter in the low end.

[Jimbo]

I find tight modern electronic bass is better with digital - Kraftwerk / The Man Machine (live) is one of my references. For truly deep bass, digital should win too as vinyl's at a technical disadvantage. For acoustic (eg double bass) I prefer vinyl as it has for greater texture and acoustic - however this is mostly with vintage recordings. At a cerebral level digital is better for bass but with passionate and atmospheric music I find vinyl bass more deeply pleasing.

Which is the winner depends on an individual's preferences I guess.

Bang on Clive, well reasoned. I have Kraftwerk live on vinyl and have compared it with a digital version and it was an interesting experience especially as I saw them live this year playing Man Machine. At the gig the bass was simply awesome and plumbed subterranean depths I had never heard before but with a precision and control that was shocking!

On vinyl the bass in this track is very good but is slightly rounded and fuller sounding than digital where I found it to be more controlled and tighter, maybe with better articulation. I like both and feel that the vinyl version is very satisfying to listen too especially as the depth and ambience in the recording feels more natural. The digital version although very good sounds less atmospheric.

Comparing vinyl vs digital vs live is a bit tricky but I would say live sounds like a cross between the two but on a massive scale.

[Mike Reed]

Technically, I'm told, digital has much more potential than vinyl. How it appears to the ears is much dependant upon a lot of other factors; room acoustics, speakers, ancillary kit etc.

B.t.w., Vb to lose (loses, has lost)) and adj. loose (= not tight) or vb. to loosen.

[WESTLOWER]

‘Better’... dodgy word.
I think I can get more timbre in a bass from vinyl, earth shaking clean chesty bass.. digital.
What’s a bass supposed to sound like ? Like Paco, Charlie Haden, Dave Holland or Ron Carter, imho...but Victor Wotton, sly and Robbie or Richard Bona ..on digital...Yes please.
Horses for coarses.
But ultimately vinyl is king I think

[struth]

Usually find both similar unless we go to digital film scores etc then digital bass takes the trophy

[nickbaba]

Don't forget most vinyl produced after the mid to late 80s will be cut from digital studio masters, so that confuses the comparison somewhat.

And one can't really compare a vintage acoustic double-bass sound to modern synthetic bass e.g. kraftwerk etc.

And furthermore, the low frequencies you can hear will be more dependent on your audio system than the particular playback medium eg.. can your speakers reproduce sound below +/- 35Hz? And can your ears detect it if they do?

But... given a hypothetically perfect playback system, and hypothetically perfect ears, the low frequency response of vinyl playback is self-limited to around 20Hz by rumble noise (chaotic platter movement around the bearing) and the resonance characteristics of the tonearm and transducer. Analog reel-to-reel tape has a low frequency cutoff of around 10Hz. And in theory digital wins with a low frequency bandwidth down to 0Hz. But given that human hearing only goes down to +/- 20Hz it's a little academic.
Where analog vinyl wins is actually in the high frequencies - CD quality digital has a brickwall cutoff at 20 kHz, whereas analog in theory has no upper limit, and frequencies of over 100kHz have been cut to vinyl. (Although this is again somewhat academic as human hearing cuts out at around 20kHz on a good day, and for the over 50s its probably more like 12 or 13Khz!)

But having said all that personally speaking I prefer the sound of vinyl bass over digital, but I think that's probably due to the slight euphonic effect of 2nd order harmonic distortion being introduced to the signal. And hooray for that, imho.

[Macca]

Bass on vinyl is summed to mono below 100Hz which is technically a degradation of sound quality compared to the original recording but might also be responsible for imparting a subjective 'solidity' to the bass.


For high frequencies there is usually a low pass filter on the cutting head that prevents any signal above 18Khz being cut, in order to avoid over-heating the cutting head. That's assuming the recording was made on equipment that could capture such frequencies to begin with, which for 99% of recordings does not apply. Most microphones don't tend to capture much beyond 20Khz.

[Yomanze]

Without a doubt, digital. I was actually quite surprised when I first realised this, playing the vinyl and CD versions of Massive Attack - Mezzanine. The record player was a Technics SL1210.

I listen to a lot of very bass heavy music, including drum ‘n bass, dub and hip hop. Digital is cleaner and tighter, maybe this isn’t what you want if playing dub music... ;)

[Primalsea]

I think that statements that declare that something is better should be responded to with the question “better for what”?

Making something better implies that there was a goal involved. If something else was made better to a different goal then you can’t really say one is just better than the other.

[Macca]

'Better' is in the ears/mind of the beholder, as always.

IME once a vinyl system gets beyond a certain point comparisons with digital become pointless. There's no way to do that without spending a fair bit of cash, though.

[Clive]

Don't forget most vinyl produced after the mid to late 80s will be cut from digital studio masters, so that confuses the comparison somewhat.

And one can't really compare a vintage acoustic double-bass sound to modern synthetic bass e.g. kraftwerk etc.

And furthermore, the low frequencies you can hear will be more dependent on your audio system than the particular playback medium eg.. can your speakers reproduce sound below +/- 35Hz? And can your ears detect it if they do?

Let me clarify what I intended. I wasn't remotely trying to compare Kraftwerk bass with acoustic double bass. I made the reference as what I value for one is not the same as for the other (or at least my priorities change). Eg with Kraftwerk one thing I want is "slam"; with double bass I want dynamics yes but the balance of other aspects shift what I want - I want to hear the strings wobble and the natural acoustic. My point about vintage recordings aligns with your point about mid to late 80s recording methods - especially too with music that's pretty much created in a DAW without a natural acoustic, bass can then become a sound effect rather than be musical.

My speakers go down to 18Hz (I have measured them) but I'd agree that there's generally little information below around 30Hz. There are a few tracks which are exceptions to this.

[Mr. C]

For me the most impressive bass from a turntable I have listen to, has been on a Rockport Sirius III and grand Utopia III's yep that did quality bass all right pretty deep and tight right the way down to 25Hz easy.

Through the same system a six box Eso digital top of the line (at the time, mono dac's two box transport and the atomic clock) bass was subterranean even shook the tiles off the listening room roof (which was 35 feet high lol) which one is better humm that a personal choice

[Haselsh1]

Oh dear, here we go again. As has already been stated, how do you quantify 'better'..? Meat and poison spring to mind here. There are so many variables involved without even getting into room size and resonances.

[Haselsh1]

Also, I'm pretty sure that the OP's comment about 'slam' has little to do with bass...?

[Haselsh1]

My best experience of 'slam' is on the track 'Finger' by Younger Brother from around four minutes thirty onwards. These days I just don't get what I used to from this track as I am using small nearfield monitors but with a huge excess of power and big cones this track is so bloody emotive. The energy is infectious. The best I ever heard on this track was some bloody huge Cerwin Vega's and a monster power amp. Maybe not hi-fi but then does it matter when the emotion is so high..?

[alphaGT]

Getting good bass from vinyl takes a bit of doing. First you need a good ‘table that’s well placed. A decent cartridge that has the lower frequency response, and set up on a platform that is not sympathetic to the floor. A poorly setup table can be bad for bass, boominess, and feedback can be troublesome. But a well sorted ‘table can do the bass content some real justice! While it may not reach as low as some digital bass, some keyboard bass that will rattle the rafters.

On my system the bass from the turntable is very satisfying, not boomy, and tight. I can hear fingers on the strings of the bass guitar or upright, detail is abundant. But I’ve got some Uriah Heep that has some gut wrenching synth bass that is truly deep! And perfectly clean while having flat response. So, it’s different, two different animals. Both with their advantages and disadvantages. Neither is wrong, neither is bad. In fact there seems to be different albums that prefer one or the other. So I guess I agree with everyone else.

Russell


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[Starterman]

Digital - both technically and audibly.

Of course, in subjective terms, it all depends on the recording and to some extent on listening level. Low levels can suit LPs "warmth" and compression.

[Clive197]

Digital has come a long way since the screechy noise we had back in the eighties. On a personal note I listen to digital 90% of the time but I still love the tactile sound vinyl brings out. Any conversation about one being better than the other is pure hyperbole as nobody listens with the same kit, surroundings or hearing abilities. The only common ground we all have is our absolute love of audio.