How Deep Must the Bass Be?

[Axo1989]

Good point! I understand that. But it's also not a complete contradiction to my thought. Normally you will listen to taiko drums at home with a reduced volume and bass depth so that it is still pleasant. Big taiko drums were also used in ancient Japan to frighten the enemy in battle. Usually they are not played in a small room but outdoors.

Straying somewhat from the topic, one of my standard test recordings is Suicide Season by the UK band Bring Me The Horizon (it won't be on your playlist I expect, but indulge me) from their middle (post metalcore, but pre pop) period. An entirely adequate system will reproduce this material at realistic volume with sufficient clarity to converse (between sonic peaks at least) and with visceral slam. I don't have an entirely adequate system at home, which is presumably your point, but I would like to at some stage, and one certainly can acquire and set up such equipment.

But, on topic now, beneath the regular bass line, that material contains occasional deep bass synth notes for emphasis. Now my system can do that well enough for me to get the feeling/intention of the material. As BMTH will not be to anyone's taste here, we can traverse the popular music spectrum to another UK group, London Grammar (who will be familiar to many). They are more genteel, but also employ deep synth bass notes. Are either of those artists still enjoyable played at less than full (frequency) range? Of course. Do most people listen to them that way? Probably. But are we missing something when we do that? Absolutely.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Just an anekdote to illustrate the topic: As I love percussion I also appreciate Taiko.

I was lucky enough having heard Taiko concerts quite often in Japan and in other countries. The group Gogawa Daiko on my photo once played in Karlsruhe, for example. During this time, the two young drummers in the front of the picture lived at our house for a couple of days.

By the way, we once gave a show taiko concert at a garden party in our backyard. Not in our apartment.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Straying somewhat from the topic, one of my standard test recordings is Suicide Season by the UK band Bring Me The Horizon

OMG
Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

 

[Axo1989]

Pipe organs... as far as I'm aware only one voice in the lower registers doesn't put out audible harmonics, and even then it's usually doubled with another voice that does have them.

I don't know if we have a resident organist on the forum that could clear up this matter properly.

Interesting topic, there's some basic physics material on the subject for sure, but you might enjoy reading this one which I found easier to follow.

 

[Axo1989]

OMG
Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

Haha. I see what you did there. I knew you'd love it.

 

[Purité Audio]

OMG
Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

Musical choice is purely subjective.
Keith

 

[dualazmak]

I assume and hope my post here would be of your interest and reference;
- Reproduction and listening/hearing/feeling sensations to 16 Hz (organ) sound with my DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier fully active stereo audio system having big-heavy active L&R sub-woofers: #782

And my "Audio Sampler/Reference Playlist", summary ref. here and here, contains some other tracks suitable for test and check of low bass sound reproduction.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Anyway I listen to live music, and always have, with the ears I have at any particular age so any comparison between live and reproduced is done in a valid sense. I certainly would not be able to discern any difference between reproduction at 12kHz but luckily music contains almost none so that isn’t a concern.

I also have this experience with age. If you keep training your ear on the original sound, it will adapt continuously as long as you don't become hard of hearing.

 

[Galliardist]

I also have this experience with age. If you keep training your ear on the original sound, it will adapt continuously as long as you don't become hard of hearing.

I agree. One of the common mistakes is to assume that you need to have more treble to compensate for high frequency hearing loss - reality doesn't come with a treble control, after all.

That I guess is for a "how high must the treble be" thread, though!

 

[dualazmak]

Anyway I listen to live music, and always have, with the ears I have at any particular age so any comparison between live and reproduced is done in a valid sense. I certainly would not be able to discern any difference between reproduction at 12kHz but luckily music contains almost none so that isn’t a concern.

As for the High Fq music sound and our age dependent hearing decline (and compensation thereof?) especially in high Fq...

My post here and here would be of your interest and reference, I assume.

- Excellent Recording Quality Music Albums/Tracks for Subjective (and Possibly Objective) Test/Check/Tuning of Multichannel Multi-Driver Multi-Amplifier Time-Aligned Active Stereo Audio System and Room Acoustics; at least a Portion and/or One Track being Analyzed by Color Spectrum of Adobe Audition in Common Parameters: [Part-04] Bimmel Bolle Antique Orgel; Extremely High-Energy High-Frequency Sharp Transient sound #592

- Excellent Recording Quality Music Albums/Tracks for Subjective (and Possibly Objective) Test/Check/Tuning of Multichannel Multi-Driver Multi-Amplifier Time-Aligned Active Stereo Audio System and Room Acoustics; at least a Portion and/or One Track being Analyzed by Color Spectrum of Adobe Audition in Common Parameters: [Part-11] Violin Music: #643

 

[Galliardist]

Interesting topic, there's some basic physics material on the subject for sure, but you might enjoy reading this one which I found easier to follow.

I found that interesting, but I'm not sure about the application described here in wider or historical practice. The variation in pipe manufacture, for example, and the fact that pipe and cylinder based instruments can have different harmonic patterns but sound similar, probably mean that without a lot of experience of measuring, voicing pipes subjectively may have been the only realistic option until recently when more exact manufacture and measurement have become available.

 

[Axo1989]

I agree. One of the common mistakes is to assume that you need to have more treble to compensate for high frequency hearing loss - reality doesn't come with a treble control, after all.

That I guess is for a "how high must the treble be" thread, though!

Yes, a treble digression: a while back I was listening to an electronic track (sadly can't remember who, maybe Autechre) and watching the spectrogram (as you do) and saw something distinctive for a fair portion of the track around 17-18 kHz. I couldn't hear it at all, so I'll never know what it was meant to sound like. Given the age of those artists, not sure they could either.

 

[Robesini]

I'm interested in people's opinions about how low the lowest frequency a subwoofer/woofer can produce with "acceptably low" distortion should be.

I'm interested only in the lowest frequency that can be heard, not just felt, regardless of how high the spl level needs to be for that to happen. I once heard a subwoofer being demonstrated which rattled the metal door on a wall-mounted electric service box on the other side of the room but I heard nothing whatever other than that metal door shaking-I do not care about the room vibrating or things in the room vibrating and making their own sounds, I only care about what I can hear that is emanating from the speaker.

Also, I am interested in people's opinions as to whether the spl level of the lowest frequency that can be heard needs to be so high to sound "loud" that it will cause hearing damage. What spl level at 20Hz is the threshold for causing hearing damage if listened to continuously?

I did not define above "acceptably low distortion" or "loud"-please give your own opinions on what values those should be.

I hope Amir can reply to this as I'm very curious to know his opinions. And by the way, Amir, thank you very much for the work you are doing and for the fact you base your work on science & audio engineering such as research findings from the AES and some of its well known luminaries such as Floyd Toole and Klippel.

I my opinion the subwoofer is indeed not only hearable sound. Also you can feel it. If your home situation allows maybe a low limit of 10 hz and upperlimit of 80 hz for good integration. But it all depends on your own sound reproduction impression you get. If you can hear where the subwoofer is in the room the configuration is not good.

 

[computer-audiophile]

 

[Axo1989]

Musical choice is purely subjective.
Keith

For music that requires sub-bass reproduction, industrial is probably a more reliable genre than post-hardcore:

https://soundcloud.com/prisonreligion%2Fsets%2Fbeachhead-1

 

[computer-audiophile]

When we come to difficult reference recordings with a lot of low bass and relatively wide dynamic range, I have a nice example of organ and cello recorded in a very large church. I happened to be present at the recording and took the following photo of Christina Meißner there.

Seraph

Christina Meissner - album - 2014 - 5 Songs

www.deezer.com

 

[Ron Texas]

50 fathoms.

 

[pablolie]

I most definitely think my HOA would have an issue if I took this up as a hobby... :-D

 

[computer-audiophile]

Once again on the subject of bass and taiko. After my experience with many different loudspeakers, I would say that taiko drums sound most realistic when they are played with PA loudspeakers of the largest possible diameter, with hard surround suspension and a classic paper cone and a high degree of efficiency. In my opinion, normal subwoofers don't get it. They change the sound.

I found a picture of the party we had organised for our friends in our backyard with show-taiko I had already mentioned.

The video is from the web, just for fun:

 

[UliBru]

So far the deepest bass recording I have in my collection is played and recorded by Paul de Métairy. The organ composition is titled as "Symphony of the Life".
The work is mainly composed by his nephew, Lucas de Métairy. See e.g. https://thecinelite.wordpress.com/paul-de-metairy/
The frequency goes down to 8 Hz in the track "Entry to Eternity". A real challenge for loudspeakers and even the playback system, e.g. the soundcard.
Of course also for the ears. I expect that the better experience is to sit directly in the church to feel the vibrations.
You can find also a Youtube version. AFAIK the only official source for getting the wav track is http://lucas.said.free.fr/ (but I recognize 404 errors there, possibly you have to use the email address. Paul is now 81 years old, I have not heard from him since a while).
As the original wav tracks contain several crackles I have once edited and cleaned them. Luckily is has not been to difficult. So Paul has also got back the clean tracks.