Why are music and audio systems with competent bass only recently a thing?

[bachatero]

I've been checking out the music landscape from the 1960s to the 1990s and I noticed how there is almost always a negligible amount of bass (say, 80Hz and below). However, starting in the 2000s, music generally became more bass-heavy. I also noticed how sound systems from the 1960s to the 1990s generally didn't have much in the way of bass capabilities. Or, at least, that was never a selling point of them.

That led me to this question: Why has the bass range only recently become something worth thinking about when it comes to sound? It's not like our ears have changed in the last few decades. It's not like acoustic materials for the lower end have only recently become viable. It's not like old tape formats couldn't handle it, because lower frequencies have the highest SNR. It's not like bassy instruments didn't exist, because organs and bass guitars/uprights have been in the 30-40Hz range for at least a century. It's not the levels today are too loud, because bass naturally requires higher power to sound the same as higher frequencies (Fletcher-Munson). It's not like the amplifier technology didn't exist back then, because plenty of subwoofers are still using the ancient and inefficient Class AB standard. It's not that plastic and plywood materials for subwoofers haven't existed for decades.

So, why have our music and sound systems only just now cared about this important part of the audio spectrum?

 

[DJNX]

Well... the speaker thing is really not that old. (Speaker science, if you want)
In the 60s and 70s, speaker designers were still figuring out what the hell to even do. In the 80s and 90s, there was attention to bass, but it was mostly brute forced with big cones. Not really efficient.
I think it was the DVD that finally introduced the concept of strong bass, to the average person, because of LFE (the subwoofer).
I would say car audio also played a role, when it became affordable for rich kids (and not so rich) to stuff their trunk with huge subwoofers, to annoy the neighborhood.

 

[Prana Ferox]

- Actual low bass and turntables tend to go poorly together, and rumble filters often could be pretty aggressive at cutting the lows
- The tech to produce and reproduce low bass is actually kind of hard. You need amp power, speaker drivers whose motor can take that power, cones and supports that can stay linear across longer distances. You mention bass guitar, through the 60s and much of the 70s live-music amplification of low bass note fundamentals was just not happening, it's simply a much harder application than for higher-frequency guitars; just trying to keep up with the SPL of the guitars was a challenge. Synths could generate whatever signal they wanted, but converting that to audio had the same problems as bass guitar. Of course there's always the kick drum.
- Mathematical design of speakers to reproduce the low end, i.e. with Thiele-Small parameters, wasn't really understood and computable until the '80s. If you don't understand how to have a cabinet / driver combo reproduce low bass, and you try to anyway, often the driver will tear itself apart.

So you don't have a lot of recorded low end, your common playback mechanism filters it out, and the end user's system will self destruct if the recording tries to have a lot of low bass anyway.

 

[DVDdoug]

In the 60s & 70s large speakers with big woofers and good bass weren't that unusual. There were also some bad designs with boomy bass, and of course lots of speakers with wimpy bass (and there still are).

Deep bass (as well as the highest-highs) was rolled-of for vinyl records.

 

[bachatero]

Deep bass (as well as the highest-highs) was rolled-of for vinyl records.

But in the 80s/90s, vinyls were already yesterday's tech and tape-based formats and CDs took over. What gives?

 

[JSmith]

This thread is based on a partial false premise. Recordings may not have had much low bass... keeping in mind vinyl and tape were the primary formats.

But the equipment was more than capable. Most had much bigger speakers in their home than today in many cases.


JSmith

 

[Blumlein 88]

But in the 80s/90s, vinyls were already yesterday's tech and tape-based formats and CDs took over. What gives?

CD was released in late 1982. It wasn't really widely available with affordable players until late 1984. Almost all available CD's were re-releases of early music for several years. It took time for it to trickle all the way thru systems, and for people to come to terms with it. So it was really late 1990's before its capabilities were generally being available.

 

[Dunring]

Hip Hop becoming extremely popular led the industry to design hardware for it. Sony sticking a "bass boost" button on everything is another example.

 

[bachatero]

CD was released in late 1982. It wasn't really widely available with affordable players until late 1984. Almost all available CD's were re-releases of early music for several years. It took time for it to trickle all the way thru systems, and for people to come to terms with it. So it was really late 1990's before its capabilities were generally being available.

This just doesn't add up though. Digital recordings first came way before CDs, so many of the first CDs which were rereleases were already digital. My dad was really into CDs and grew a huge collection of them in the 80s/90s, after all the latest new recordings had already made their way on. A.S. (the guy in my profile photo) literally made all his 90s recordings in a podunk studio in the Dominican Republic yet all except one release primarily came on CDs.

Hip Hop becoming extremely popular led the industry to design hardware for it. Sony sticking a "bass boost" button on everything is another example.

This I can get behind. My CD version of "Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc has what you'd consider an audible amount of bass today, but it must have been downright deleterious back in 1988.

 

[JSmith]

This just doesn't add up though.

It does... many CD's sounded horrible when CD's were becoming popular because record companies often used the master made for cutting LP's for the CD.


JSmith

 

[Mnyb]

I do wonder when studios had good monitoring capabilities for low bass . Sure a digital recorder from the late 80’s probably recorded sub bass if present. But if it ever was “controlled“ and adjusted by any engineer ? I don’t know .

for vinyl I can imagine it prudent to cut out the sub 30 hz content in mastering.
then it’s anyone’s guess if this filtering remains in the 1990’s CD re releases?

 

[Blumlein 88]

This just doesn't add up though. Digital recordings first came way before CDs, so many of the first CDs which were rereleases were already digital. My dad was really into CDs and grew a huge collection of them in the 80s/90s, after all the latest new recordings had already made their way on. A.S. (the guy in my profile photo) literally made all his 90s recordings in a podunk studio in the Dominican Republic yet all except one release primarily came on CDs.

This I can get behind. My CD version of "Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc has what you'd consider an audible amount of bass today, but it must have been downright deleterious back in 1988.

It does add up. There were many promoted DDD CD's, but the overwhelming majority and biggest sellers were reissues for years. My first two purchases of CDs were DDD new digital releases. The first being Wynton Marsalis (in 1983). Most after that like 80% at least were replacing albums I had on LP or new releases and plenty of the new releases were AAD. Analog up until the conversion to put on CD.

This is not surprising, big upheavals like from all analog to a digital distribution medium will usually take about a generation or 20 years.

 

[JSmith]

"Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc

That wasn't live recorded music... like most modern music, it's all put together by sampling. There are no real drums of course and this was the period synths and drum machines were proliferating with electronic music. Tone-Loc was likely using a Roland TB-808 or 909 for that heavy bass you hear... like much of the rap/hip-hop at the time. Check out the bass in Gangsta Gangsta by NWA for example.


JSmith

 

[Prana Ferox]

This thread is based on a partial false premise. Recordings may not have had much low bass... keeping in mind vinyl and tape were the primary formats.

But the equipment was more than capable. Most had much bigger speakers in their home than today in many cases.

'Big speaker' doesn't necessarily mean 'bass-heavy speaker'. A lot of older hi-fi used large drivers for high efficiency because the amps just couldn't put much out. It's the same reason you see so many older 15" PA speakers with 90-something dB efficiency but a fairly high LF cutoff. Classic Klipsch (which are basically big PA speakers) are other examples, and it's also why they used horns.

 

[Mnyb]

How old are we ? Is the 1990’s recent

on topic , good subwoofer implementation for the mass market is pretty much the same as digital audio so it became a thing with the DVD .

but I remember good bass from large floor standing speakers from the 1990’s late 80’s .
but sure the subwoofer market for home theater has lead to development of really capable drivers that for sure .

the only people in 1970 that really wanted sub 20hz content where people listen to church organ music. There was no home theater.

 

[Prana Ferox]

My CD version of "Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc has what you'd consider an audible amount of bass today, but it must have been downright deleterious back in 1988.

It's worse than you could imagine. If you pumped Wild Thing too loud for too long, Tipper Gore would protest in front of your house.

 

[bachatero]

That wasn't live recorded music... like most modern music, it's all put together by sampling. There are no real drums of course and this was the period synths and drum machines were proliferating with electronic music. Tone-Loc was likely using a Roland TB-808 or 909 for that heavy bass you hear... like much of the rap/hip-hop at the time. Check out the bass in Gangsta Gangsta by NWA for example.

That's kind of what I was going for. Unlike other music, hip-hop with synthesizers and other sampling instruments basically had bass as their selling point, because at the time almost nothing else had it.

 

[JSmith]

'Big speaker' doesn't necessarily mean 'bass-heavy speaker'.

The first home subwoofers were around in the 60's.


JSmith

 

[Gringoaudio1]

Synthesizers were able to create bass and bass at levels not produced by other instruments. But synths have been around for a long time. My dad’s KLH Model 5 produced great bass fed with the right music. Genesis Trick of the Tail had some great bass! On the vinyl too! From memory at least! My parents were so generous letting me play my collection loudly! There was no escape from the music in our house!

 

[OldHvyMec]

There was no home theater.

BUT there was Concerts on TV that you could tune to on the FM and get what they were delivering in 2 and 3 channel playback. There was
sub/bass information and if your setup could play back typical 20hz-20khz you had a pretty good concert going on. It depended on what
you were using. I was using C20 and 3 MC60s with 3 Infinity QL2s. 1976-1982. It was 100% what you liked to hear too. We listened to a lot
of Central/South American jazz and Caribbean music.

There was a lot of synthesized music too.

A LOT of good Reel to Reel tape back then. A lot of people used reel to reel in the 70-80s. It didn't go away it was just overwhelmed by
Cassette and CDs later on and people died and there systems went with them. Spec I and II systems were pretty common with Infinity,
VMPS, JBL, and Klipsch speakers. Serious BASS with some of those system and Spec II was no slouch. The only BIG problem was Bose
and there no highs and no lows. The 901s never could do bass but they sure sounded good if you added subs and ST like many users
did. They could engulf a pretty big room. Zero imaging but music everywhere.

Room treatment was heavy drapes and heavy quilts hung like a tent in the corners along with shag carpets. The old Mcintosh had enough
filters to fix anything from bass boom/rumble filters to HF cuts to keep your ears from being boiled. Variable Loudness was a key feature
of Mac along with bass contour on the back of the units. It still had tone control on top of all that.

We were taping windows back in the 70-80s for sure.

Regards