Galliardist
Major Contributor
Not yet it isn’t.
But that’s not for this thread, unless you want it squashed.
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How Deep Must the Bass Be?
- Thread starter audioresearch
- Start date
But that’s not for this thread, unless you want it squashed.
One of the biggest lesson I have learned during my journey is the importance of bass, headroom and low distortion. When I learned about the positive of multi-subwoofer placement in the room and having a lot of headroom for low distortion, it was like going from a 14" B&W TV from the 60s to a 4K display of today.
It was very informative how big improvement to the overall sound of the music a bass system that could go down to 20Hz and that had headroom to spare, would give my system. Cleaner mids because there was no low bass that the driver needed to reproduce. This combined with room treatment is, by far, the most importent steps in my journey.
My enjoyment and happiness with the system and the sound it produced today is pure pleasure. I cannot even image compare it to the sound I had before this.
I wonder if a, "How high should the treble go?" thread would get as much excitement.
Haha not likely. Nor should it.
Unlike bass, treble is easily implemented to not be SPL, distortion, or extension limited.
There are low frequencies that we hear in day-to-day life that aren't reproduced without an exceptional low-frequency playback system (movies more so than music). Not so with treble.
If extended high-frequency treble could be felt or heard with greater output--and a subset of the population found it highly enjoyable--then maybe there would be more excitement, but that's just not the case. Not unless ultrasonic tactile transducers become all the rage.
While agreeing with everything you said, I'll note that some audiophile speakers "feature" tweeters good to 40kHz and beyond. And of course, you pay extra for that.
We'll said!
I would add 'ridding the room of all sympathetic audible room rattles and resonances' as a significant enhancement to enjoyment as well.
I've had at least 30 guests in my room over the past year, and several of them (mostly woman) announced that they 'didn't like bass' before hearing the system. Not one of them felt that way when they left.
Someone once said, "if bad bass were fatal, it would be a leading cause of death". I would hazard to say some percentage of listeners (but not all!) discount the value of well implemented and functionally limitless bass because they've never actually heard it.
And they've never heard it because--outside of headphones which aren't remotely the same experience--it's hard to accomplish.
I assume the people with one-note bass are saving up to buy the other notes.
Yes, indeed.
Of course, a driver with such extension might also push breakup modes out of the audible band, which can have legitimate merit within the audible frequency range.
But still not as fun as bass!
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Well, there may be advantages. But I think it's mainly woo-woo.
From your lips to Gods ear.
I see some struggling to get the latest influx of money to keep things going.
Well said and right on point with my feelings.
A better thread would be "how high does your reefer get ya"
There was a short time in the past when add-on super tweeters had some popularity but it's mostly died out.
Even the audiophools weren't hearing a difference. LOL
It isn’t the record in this case it is the technology of the transducer, ie how it generates a signal and therefore its actual working bandwidth.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
Of course I meant the entire system, starting with the turntable whose bearings and drive produce rumbling noises. etc. etc.
Reminds me of my brother whose wife always complained about the awful bass when he got a new subwoofer. I was wondering about that until I visited: SVS-SB2000 put into corner of small living room, in a apartment with mighty thick concrete walls. The boominess was something special.
I gave him AntiMode DSP I had hanging around and even though the initial reaction was that it "removed all the bass", but after maybe day or two the device stayed and everybody was happy.
And some people actually love the boominess. Odd world we live in.
Rumble is rarely much on a well designed turntable. The common problem is absence of the required bandwidth limiting filter on the phono stage to remove the out of band spurious rubbish.
The whole world of enthusiasts, it seems, are quite ignorant of what a seismic transducer (MM or MC pickup cartridge) is, how it works and why its reasonably accurate bandwidth can not physically descend into the low bass. It is basic transducer physics and everybody in the business was well aware of it in the 70s when I was involved.
Now LP replay is a fashion business technical competence seems to be one of the casualties in the industry.
25 Hz is achievable and 30Hz no problem.
As happened with tube equipment, too.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
I think most people who "don't like bass" have only heard bad bass because of one of these two problems, probably both:
1. Poor bass from speakers or subwoofers with a lot of distortion or too high Q.
2. Bad room with too many resonances making the bass sound just like the same uncontrolled note.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
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