My mind has been coming back to this thread some recently, because I've set up a small display with two spectrum audio visualizers using
cava. The display requires a little explanation with a photo so you'll know what you are seeing in the video below it.
The screen has a top spectrum and a bottom one, and both are in stereo.
- The top visualizer is full spectrum, with 20 Hz being the center of the display for both the right and left side, and then extending to 20 kHz at the outside edges.
- The bottom visualizer works the same, except the center is only 10 Hz and the outsize is only 80 Hz. I love this because it gives me a stereo view of my subs.
View attachment 282842
With that explained, let's see what stereo bass looks like. Since I can swap between stereo and mono subs at the flip of a switch, and I can also see what's happening in real-time, the A/B testing has been very interesting. I am aware that this is the polar opposite of blind testing.
This is 10s clip from the track
Timbres off Yosi Horikawa's Spaces album (about 40s in). What you'll see below is a sub bass musical event that starts somewhere around 20-30 Hz in the left channel, sweeps up to about 80 Hz, then passes over to the right channel to fall back down to the 20-30 Hz region.
This is very audible to me between mono/stereo bass, with the stereo being more enjoyable. One of the interesting things I keep hearing and reading from people with mono bass setups is something to the effect of "most bass is mixed down to mono anyway." I've been watching these dancing bars for days now, and I have to say, most of what I listen to so far is nearly all stereo bass. There are obviously exceptions, but most of it is full stereo all the way down. I'm guessing most people don't know at all if what they listen to has stereo bass and are just dismissing it in a way that makes them feel okay.
The display has let me very quickly identify stereo bass visually, and A/B testing constantly confirmed audibility to me on my system, and the stereo bass always sounds better. This has been a fun little road for me to go down, and I'm very happy with my setup. I'm going to nuke the mono bass configuration off my miniDSP because I have yet to find a single circumstance where it sounds better, let alone as good as the stereo setup.