Curious about subwoofer/low frequency "tightness"/musicality. What does it even mean? What do YOU look for?

[goat76]

mUsiCaLiTy is a special quality only perceptible by those who are old and hard of hearing. Unfortunately because it is impervious to measurement and science, we will never know how or why it is inaudible to the rest of us. Life is full of mysteries. And that's why so is mankind.

I have a pretty good idea what most people mean when they use the term “musicality” when it comes to subwoofers in particular. “Unmusical” most likely means a subwoofer not very well integrated with the main speakers, which makes it reveal itself as an unattached and separate sound course. Or a subwoofer, that for one or another reason, sounds like it's only capable of playing “one note” bass without much articulation.

The integration problem seems to be hard to solve for many people, but that is most likely not a problem with the subwoofer itself, while the “one note” problem can be a quality issue with the subwoofer, but most likely a room mode problem.

I don't see what else “musicality” could mean than any of the above-mentioned things, so I don't think it’s that hard to understand what people mean by it. It's just that more often than not, the subwoofer shouldn't be blamed for not being “musical” enough.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I don't see what else “musicality” could mean than any of the above-mentioned things, so I don't think it’s that hard to understand what people mean by it. It's just that more often than not, the subwoofer shouldn't be blamed for not being “musical” enough.

This all makes sense, except that people also use "musicality" to describe the bass (and/or other features) of non-subwoofer speakers. I think you've generated a much more reasonable explanation than the truth

 

[Blueprint]

It’s probably just the absence of low bass in underpowered subwoofers that make them sound ‘musical’. There isn’t much musical about a driver moving air to produce 20hz at high SPL, even if it does so with low distortion.

 

[Sokel]

It’s probably just the absence of low bass in underpowered subwoofers that make them sound ‘musical’. There isn’t much musical about a driver moving air to produce 20hz at high SPL, even if it does so with low distortion.

Vast majority of music (specially older) rarely does 30's , 20's is an oddity.
So not much to air to move down there with no meaningful signal.

100's on the other hand... (100Hz-250Hz) that's the ballroom.
Do that right and fat and no problem lower or higher apart from deliberate (or not) brightness, etc.

The point is that the sub (or bass driver) must be comparable to it's handshake.
If it's not all kinds of stuff can occur.

 

[dualazmak]

hmmm im sorry but im confused, what do you mean? can you explain? I thought crossover meant the point at which the sub starts playing instead of the speaker, what does that mean for delay or location?

Have you read my post #46??

 

[Jiraya369]

One that hits 132 dB SPL where I sit with one tenth of its rated RMS power +-3 dB 20-120 Hz , that sub's for me...

that's not a subwoofer that's a sub monster

can you give some examples of subs like this and like, how do you even look for these without putting em in your room?

 

[Jiraya369]

Have you read my post #46??

i didn't read the edit

 

[Jiraya369]

Vast majority of music (specially older) rarely does 30's , 20's is an oddity.
So not much to air to move down there with no meaningful signal.

100's on the other hand... (100Hz-250Hz) that's the ballroom.
Do that right and fat and no problem lower or higher apart from deliberate (or not) brightness, etc.

The point is that the sub (or bass driver) must be comparable to it's handshake.
If it's not all kinds of stuff can occur.

how is a sub comparable to its handshake? Distortion? Group delay? FR linearity?

 

[RexrothPigeon]

Vast majority of music (specially older) rarely does 30's , 20's is an oddity.

this is woefully anachronistic (or, less charitably, out of touch). It's been decades since music was frequency limited this way. I'm in my 50s and I grew up with hiphop and electronic music. Hell, Miami Bass music has been around since the early 80s.

 

[Jiraya369]

this is woefully anachronistic (or, less charitably, out of touch). It's been decades since music was frequency limited this way. I'm in my 50s and I grew up with hiphop and electronic music. Hell, Miami Bass music has been around since the early 80s.

real, even if older music didnt have much info around that region from instruments, the things that always went deep were percussion/drums.

Be it orchestral, acoustic or even electronic, kick drums dig DEEP.

 

[Adis]

that's not a subwoofer that's a sub monster

can you give some examples of subs like this and like, how do you even look for these without putting em in your room?

I can explain how I arrived at these figures; 115 dB SPL for the LFE channel, an additional 17 if I add the levels of the seven correlated channels lo-passed at 120 Hz. At a tenth of the maximum power, professional manufacturers measure the dynamic compression of the driver and take this as the "green area". So, if they can do it, so can I.
And it doesn't have to be just one cabinet, there can be one for each corner.

 

[dualazmak]

i didn't read the edit

OK, understood.
Not only for you but also for many people onboard on this thread, let me repeat the "Edit" portion of my post #46 here again as follows.

No matter whatever steep-slope (or mild-slope) crossover filters (LPF for subwoofer, HPF for woofer) would be used, we always have the Fq-zone where sub-woofer and woofer do sing together in almost same gain. The careful optimization is needed/indispensable, therefore, on selection of XO-Fq, XO-filter-type (BW, LR, Bessel, etc.), both-side slopes, phase matching (smooth phase continuation, invert or not), time alignment (group delay), gain matching, etc., etc.
I believe the objective and visual observation of tone-burst sine waves of suitable Fq "in the XO Fq zone" and the 3D color representation thereof, both microphone-measured at listening position, would be most suitable and reliable for such XO optimization between sub-woofer and woofer, as I have done in #495, #503, #507.

 

[Sokel]

this is woefully anachronistic (or, less charitably, out of touch). It's been decades since music was frequency limited this way. I'm in my 50s and I grew up with hiphop and electronic music. Hell, Miami Bass music has been around since the early 80s.

You're not frequent at the Bass music thread as it seems.
You'll see plenty of measurements there and there's obviously a lot of works down at 30's, even at my genre (classical) .

But it's not the norm, for sure.

(I'm mid 50's as well but not hip-hop for me. Other than classical I have some lethal Radiohead remixes that dig real deep)

 

[Sokel]

how is a sub comparable to its handshake? Distortion? Group delay? FR linearity?

Size but mostly quality.
You don't match a nice Purifi or Scan-Speak driver with a distortion/resonance factory for example.

 

[Sokel]

And a funny anecdote that goes down the streets for decades and amongst DIYers:

Nice sub/bass/etc goes "Vvvvvv..."
Bad one goes "Vrrrrrr..."

 

[Jiraya369]

Size but mostly quality.
You don't match a nice Purifi or Scan-Speak driver with a distortion/resonance factory for example.

what's your threshold for a bad sub in terms of distortion? Would the RSL 10e pass the test ~80db or something?

And what's the point of ported vs sealed subs apart from sealed ones usually being a lot smaller? I see sealed ones not going as deep and even if they do they have far higher distortion. Take the Arendal 1961 1S and 1V for example. The one thing about sealed subs, the "tightness" which i thought to be group delay, is not an advantage here as the 1V does the same, whilst also going deeper with far less distortion and even a basically linear response which isnt what the 1S has.

The 1V is far bigger but that's the only con here, apart from this, why would someone go for a 1S? And adding to this question, do you look for a sealed or ported sub yourself, and why?

Since sealed subs have higher distortion, would they not in fact be less "musical"?

 

[3ll3d00d]

I can explain how I arrived at these figures; 115 dB SPL for the LFE channel, an additional 17 if I add the levels of the seven correlated channels lo-passed at 120 Hz

the theoretical worst case signal (basically a full scale sine wave on every channel) in a 7.1 setup is 20*log(10^(115/20)+(7*(10^(105/20))) = ~125.14dB (the 7 main channels give you ~122 and add that to 115 ends up at ~125)

there's zero content in the real world that has such a signal though so sizing a system on that basis will still have a few (~2-3) dB headroom with real world content (then a few more dB comes for free from room gain though that some of that gets eaten up by a house curve).

 

[kawauso]

what's your threshold for a bad sub in terms of distortion? Would the RSL 10e pass the test ~80db or something?

And what's the point of ported vs sealed subs apart from sealed ones usually being a lot smaller? I see sealed ones not going as deep and even if they do they have far higher distortion. Take the Arendal 1961 1S and 1V for example. The one thing about sealed subs, the "tightness" which i thought to be group delay, is not an advantage here as the 1V does the same, whilst also going deeper with far less distortion and even a basically linear response which isnt what the 1S has.

The 1V is far bigger but that's the only con here, apart from this, why would someone go for a 1S? And adding to this question, do you look for a sealed or ported sub yourself, and why?

Since sealed subs have higher distortion, would they not in fact be less "musical"?

The 1V is a better choice than the 1S.

Ported subs can produce some port noise at high SPL,
but it’s far less noticeable than mechanical distortion.

The RSL 10e looks very good for the price —
more than sufficient for 80 dB use.

If you roll off around 20 Hz,
it should also handle slightly higher SPL levels without issue.

 

[Wayne Highwood]

And adding to this question, do you look for a sealed or ported sub yourself, and why?

You answered this yourself, earlier in your post: size. I have both. Why? It's case specific. 9x11 closed office has sealed subs. Why? They don't hog up a bunch of space, and their shallower roll-off plays well with the higher cabin gain that small enclosed rooms tend to have, so in-room bass extends nice and deep (sans eq). The huge, open floorplan room that eats bass for breakfast has ported subs. Why? They're simply much more efficient at producing bass. In this room/space, going sealed would demand a highly costly, herculean brute force approach to do the same job.

 

[Sokel]

what's your threshold for a bad sub in terms of distortion? Would the RSL 10e pass the test ~80db or something?

And what's the point of ported vs sealed subs apart from sealed ones usually being a lot smaller? I see sealed ones not going as deep and even if they do they have far higher distortion. Take the Arendal 1961 1S and 1V for example. The one thing about sealed subs, the "tightness" which i thought to be group delay, is not an advantage here as the 1V does the same, whilst also going deeper with far less distortion and even a basically linear response which isnt what the 1S has.

The 1V is far bigger but that's the only con here, apart from this, why would someone go for a 1S? And adding to this question, do you look for a sealed or ported sub yourself, and why?

Since sealed subs have higher distortion, would they not in fact be less "musical"?

My preference if I had to choose would be case specific as @Wayne Highwood described above.
And that preference would dictate to me if I went with sealed ones they would have to be at least twice as good, quality-wised, than any ported candidate.