How to find what music has stereo bass (with EasyEffects)

[olieb]

Below were Dr Toole's settings of his previous setup in California. The level settings of the SFM optimized subs alone were 0 dB left front, -6 dB right front, -12 dB left rear, -12 dB right rear. Each sub also has its delay and one PEQ attenuation filter. I doubt SFM optimized sub settings will work very well in general for stereo bass.

It will certainly not work, if you do not try. It is not that things will break.
I do not see a reason to assume the result of an attempt, in particular when it is obvious that there is something that could be missed by always summing to mono.
In the described situation with four subs a very simple and crude first try could be to route left channel bass to the left subs and right channel to right subs.
For mono bass that would change nothing, so with the flip of a switch you can always revert to your "optimized" solution.
For stereo bass one would need to adjust the level of uncorrelated ("side") signal such that the result is not disadvantageous.
Maybe one would find that this results in -∞ dB for the "side signal", or that every audible change that can be created is for the worse, maybe not.
And of course more sophisticated routing might be better necessary.

 

[j_j]

Something to remember about LP's. Rumble is most often strongest in the L-R sense, in other words, out-of-phase low bass.

 

[audiofooled]

First thing to figure out is how you deal with stereo flaws for the phantom center, both for close field and far field, for the low frequencies alike. Which also comes with a catch that left and right channel are equally contributing so that the cues are actually provided by the summation, again for the low frequencies alike. This is a real pain in the neck considering control bellow the transition region.

 

[levimax]

I have recently been playing around with moving from 4 subs to one big sub to 2 big subs co-located with the mains in order to get stereo bass. I tried to set it up so I could easily switch back and forth between stereo and summed bass but that part has proven to be problematic as well as bringing up some questions about how exactly sum to mono is executed. The problem with quick switching between stereo and summed mono bass is that when summed to mono the subs become louder (6 dB) which is clearly audible. It takes time for me to adjust the gain so comparisons are difficult but in some cases it seems like the summed bass sounds different. The question this raises for me is that how summed bass affects the crossover? Assuming a recording with stereo bass summed to mono then the signal on the sub side of the crossover is different that the signal on the mains side of the crossover. Not sure about audibility but it seems like it has to be sub optimal and I never see this issue mentioned. At this point I am preferring the stereo bass but of course there are some biases that could be in play.

 

[Chrispy]

Is NOBODY interested in stereo bass?

Like ULF somewhat a specialty endeavor?

 

[audiofooled]

I have recently been playing around with moving from 4 subs to one big sub to 2 big subs co-located with the mains in order to get stereo bass. I tried to set it up so I could easily switch back and forth between stereo and summed bass but that part has proven to be problematic as well as bringing up some questions about how exactly sum to mono is executed. The problem with quick switching between stereo and summed mono bass is that when summed to mono the subs become louder (6 dB) which is clearly audible. It takes time for me to adjust the gain so comparisons are difficult but in some cases it seems like the summed bass sounds different. The question this raises for me is that how summed bass affects the crossover? Assuming a recording with stereo bass summed to mono then the signal on the sub side of the crossover is different that the signal on the mains side of the crossover. Not sure about audibility but it seems like it has to be sub optimal and I never see this issue mentioned. At this point I am preferring the stereo bass but of course there are some biases that could be in play.

Stereo subs should sum to mono for the mono correlated part of the signal (and become 6 dB louder, independent of the frequency within their operating bandwidth determined by the crossover). For the decorrelated part of the signal they should also sum correctly as dictated by the signal, up to a point they are almost inaudible, pressure wise. But that's only part of the equation, taking rooms into account.