Low shelf: Is this an absolutely horrible thing to do?

[bachatero]

I have just calibrated my system to have a nice, sloping down curve in the bass region with the spikes ironed out (fixed a little more after taking this screenshot)

but now I'm listening to music and it seems like there is no bass. So, this is where the rubber meets the road. Should I opt to add a +3dB low-shelf at around 80Hz to add interest in the low region, or should I stick to the reference curve? The reason I ask this is because it also seems like many of us on ASR add such a bass shelf but the engineer in me wants to keep everything as flat as possible.

 

[amirm]

Flat is wrong. You absolutely need a bass shelf. The amount of that will be to taste. Be sure to play varied content so that it is not too much for one track and not enough for others.

 

[AnalogSteph]

That's a considerable tilt already. The entire swing would look shockingly large on a 50 dB scale. 30 Hz is up 30 dB over the midrange. How are reverb times in this room? I once had this case of a set of speakers in a large, barren room, and boy did that ever throw off the bass and treble tilt subjectively. That's why they say a room curve is not a target per se.

As an aside, multipoint or MMM measurements with a pinch of smoothing seem to be direly needed.

 

[ZolaIII]

Add low self boost to desired SPL and at 105 Hz Q 0.71.

 

[bachatero]

How are reverb times in this room?

This room is pretty small and has TONS of heavy acoustic treatment (MLV under rugs, mineral wool wall panels) and so even low bass barely sticks around other than in modes.

 

[amirm]

BTW, for general tonality, you want to use 1/3 to 1/6 octave filtering. That allows you to see the trend much better without all the small variations.

 

[dualazmak]

Flat is wrong. You absolutely need a bass shelf. The amount of that will be to taste. Be sure to play varied content so that it is not too much for one track and not enough for others.

Fully agree with @amirm!

And, just for your reference, as I wrote again here yesterday and today,,,,
I believe that it should be always very important and indispensable not only objective and semi-objective "measurements and tunings" but also the utilization of persistent/consistent and suitable "audio reference/sampler music playlist" (in my case please refer here), throughout our audio tunings as well as room acoustic treatments for our final intensive subjective assessments.

 

[AnalogSteph]

This room is pretty small and has TONS of heavy acoustic treatment (MLV under rugs, mineral wool wall panels) and so even low bass barely sticks around other than in modes.

Sounds like a classic own-goal then. First you absorb the hell out of everything, and now you don't like it and want your boundary gain back. Reminds me of that time I got a monitor arm and deemed myself the king of ergonomics, only for my carpal tunnels to start complaining about 3 years later... I have not used Model Ms since. *sigh*

Anyway, it may be time to consider easing up on broadband absorption and addressing individual modes with Helmholtz resonators instead. Where are your subs located? As dumb as it sounds, you may want to create new boundaries for them to give you some boundary gain.

It still baffles me that a tilt as shown would register as bass-light. Maybe because the midbass is kinda scooped out... draw a straight line between about 40 Hz and 400 Hz, and you should see the problem. There is a lot going on in the 30-40 Hz area (good for action movies I suppose), but not a whole lot around 80-100 Hz, relatively speaking.

I'm not exactly too enthused about the scooped-out midrange and mid-treble brightness seen, is that supposed to be a loudness filter or something? A better-suited measurement (like MMM and/or a reverb time graph) would be required to say anything definitive about these regions though.

And yes, it is absolutely possible to accidentally over-absorb in the midrange, BTDT. If all you have is mineral wool and thick foam type absorbers without an additional layer of traditional wedge foam on top, reverb times can go back up in the treble.