I was doing some listening yesterday and again was reminded how variable recordings are in the bass frequency range. My system is essentially flat down to around 20 Hz. Most recordings sound great, but there are some that have an enormous bass "bloom/boom" at very low frequencies, as if the recording engineer needed to boost the bass because of his monitoring system - or simply didn't hear the very low stuff. Who knows? But for many people excessive bass is a "forgivable sin". Otherwise, accessible tone controls are very useful. Having a "perfect" home system does not guarantee "perfect" sound.
Dear Floyd, I’d like your highly regarded opinion, looking for insights, on a bad taste I’m recently developing for LF boost.
To start with, the two lower drivers of my active speakers have honeycomb construction for rigid lightness + they bear captors feeding electronic loops so that their membranes don’t go any further/longer than is anticipated from the fed signal. See attachment.
So, they are not built/chosen for boom boom
Furthermore, thanks to
@OCA sharings, my DRC includes Virtual Bass Array for frequency adequate timely firing of phase inverted signals to prevent unwanted LF buildups.
I also tend to use Sinc S upsampling filter in HQPlayer, that I, and others, have qualified of "leaner"
Add that from studying Genelec, Sonarworks surveys, Halbar reverse engineering of compared masterings, I have an educated belief, if not proof, that modern masterings tend to be monitored flat, at most with the 1dB downward slope starting @1K for MFSL SACD.
So I won’t even invoke as justification the circle of confusion that certainly rules so much so that I believe that each and every time we listen to a track we actually remaster it, to no physical support, ok, but to our ears/brain, and the closer we reproduce in our rooms the mastering conditions, the less we destroy the intent.
Yet, to discard examples in pop or oldish, I recently enjoyed Savall’s Beethoven’s Symphonies with the beefier (see attached) in room response* (made after historic Harman Target Curve) and Barenboim’s On my new piano with the in room response made after a target I found labeled “Synthesis” (second beefier).
Maybe hints of too much bloom on a few notes but globally I get a greater suspension of disbelief, a more radical substitution of my room’s acoustic by that of the venues,a more realistic sense of distances, and (
better) more presence/delineation of the instruments.
Of course, I have at hand, and use whenever too much is to be avoided, an in room response tweaked (only below 464 Hz) after your ideal steady state.
Can you mention any rational (excessive cleanliness of my bass response compared to monitor’s? LF borne cues ?) or is it pure preference verging on bad taste and "sin"?
*measurements at 1/6th of both channels
PS : I don’t have neighbors, typically listen with 3 to 10 dBs attenuation in refence to K system : I rule out Fletcher-Munson
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