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

[JSmith]

BUT there was Concerts on TV that you could tune to on the FM

Actually here they would often simulcast the Saturday night movie on an FM station, so people could have the audio coming through their stereo instead of TV speakers.


JSmith

 

[sigbergaudio]

Quite a few studios had lacking monitors for bass as well. The famed Yamaha NS10 rolls off like a brick wall at 90hz or so. So if you only used that as an engineer, you wouldn't really know if your track had bass or not.

 

[Tell]

Quite a few studios had lacking monitors for bass as well. The famed Yamaha NS10 rolls off like a brick wall at 90hz or so. So if you only used that as an engineer, you wouldn't really know if your track had bass or not.

Yeah I was just about to write the same, those Yamahas did probably kill a lot of bass, either they didn't know what was down there so if they/we where lucky we might get some bass in our music, or they just put a highpass filter just to be sure nothing happened they didn't have any control over.
Also that 1-2khz bump looks really nasty as well, really don't understand at all how those things became so popular.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Here's a measurement of a pair of NS10s in-room / at the listening position. Not too heavy on the bass.

 

[Tell]

Here's a measurement of a pair of NS10s in-room / at the listening position. Not too heavy on the bass.

View attachment 374917

Wow with that 110Hzish null it gets even worse, almost on par with my laptop speakers. And what's up with that 600-700hz dip?

 

[Hear Here]

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.

Are you talking about historical recordings here? If you are talking about speakers, then I must offer an alternative view. Look at old Hi-Fi Year Books and you'll see than most floor-standing speakers featured large bass drivers, often 10 to 15". I had a number of big speakers from the 1960s and there was no shortage of bass. However, more recently the development of speaker drivers and better cabinet design has allowed better bass from smaller drivers, so many quite costly speakers offer just a pair of 6 or 7" bass drivers. Although this is quite impressive initially, a switch back to a genuinely well-designed speaker with big drivers shows how "relaxing" the latter is and how "strained" the former. Visit a show such as Bristol and you'll hear lots of the former type of design, but then move to the Harbeth room (or other with 12" drivers in their speakers) and the difference is obvious.

Another reason for the disappearance of big drivers is to keep speakers slim and less costly of course. However, this leads buyers (after a while) to realise the lack of good bass, so they resort to adding subs. In the 1960s there were no subs, largely because speakers were available that simply didn't need them. Now, sadly, most speakers benefit from this mongrel solution to improve overall frequency response. That may not go down well with sub fans but there's no doubt that modern speakers with big drivers really don't need subs. I recently added 2 x REL S812 subs (12" plus 12" radiator) to my Avantgarde speaker system and I'm getting negligible sound improvement. I'm still working on it, but I suspect these subs will be in the Classified section soon!

PS - I'm talking 2-channel of course. The AV guys seem to favour over-blown bass and the benefits of subs are more justified in AV systems.

 

[gwing]

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?

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

Yes indeed, I had a 'modern' fairly budget hi-fi system in the 70s and listened in astonishment and awe to my father in law's system which had evolved since the 50s and at the time consisted of massively powerful 10w per channel Leak valve amps driving bass corner reflex speakers with 15" woofers built into the house fabric. These did lack a bit in stereo imaging and high frequency response but had no lack of bass and were a more natural and relaxed sound then we typically have today. Sound sources for that were FM radio, reel to reel tape and vinyl more as an afterthought. They also had a nice Bosendorfer grand in the same room for recorded/live sound demonstrations which was a hard act to follow.

 

[Sokel]

Let's define bass first.Cause affordable older speakers had way more tactile feeling,punch,etc than even today's normal 3-ways and WAY more SPL ability.
And music had it too,I have posted classical stuff from the 50's that go down to 30Hz.

What changed is probably the need for low rubble cause of HT and also the need for smaller cabinets,
Today's problem is that they maybe go low but they don't kick.

 

[sergeauckland]

Are you talking about historical recordings here? If you are talking about speakers, then I must offer an alternative view. Look at old Hi-Fi Year Books and you'll see than most floor-standing speakers featured large bass drivers, often 10 to 15". I had a number of big speakers from the 1960s and there was no shortage of bass. However, more recently the development of speaker drivers and better cabinet design has allowed better bass from smaller drivers, so many quite costly speakers offer just a pair of 6 or 7" bass drivers. Although this is quite impressive initially, a switch back to a genuinely well-designed speaker with big drivers shows how "relaxing" the latter is and how "strained" the former. Visit a show such as Bristol and you'll hear lots of the former type of design, but then move to the Harbeth room (or other with 12" drivers in their speakers) and the difference is obvious.

Another reason for the disappearance of big drivers is to keep speakers slim and less costly of course. However, this leads buyers (after a while) to realise the lack of good bass, so they resort to adding subs. In the 1960s there were no subs, largely because speakers were available that simply didn't need them. Now, sadly, most speakers benefit from this mongrel solution to improve overall frequency response. That may not go down well with sub fans but there's no doubt that modern speakers with big drivers really don't need subs. I recently added 2 x REL S812 subs (12" plus 12" radiator) to my Avantgarde speaker system and I'm getting negligible sound improvement. I'm still working on it, but I suspect these subs will be in the Classified section soon!

Completely agree. Even in the lare 1960s and early 1970s , there were loudspeakers by Tannoy, Cambridge Audio, IMF, Rogers, Goodmans etc that had excellent bass. However, they were big, and didn't figure in most people's thinking where a Dansette record player or a Stereogram if you were Posh, was more the thing.
The trend to smaller houses, more 'stuff' that left less room for HiFi, and other things like Colout TV, VCRs and home computers really did it for large 'speakers in most homes.

There's no need for subs if you have a pair of Tannoy 15" MGs or IMF TLS80s!

S

 

[goat76]

@Tell and @sigbergaudio

Your concerns about using NS-10s in studios seem to be based on the misconception that a single pair of speakers is the only thing used throughout a whole audio production. However, that is usually not the case, the NS-10s were mostly used as one of many tools during the mixing process as it was found to be highly revealing of possible faults in the important midrange area. A more bass-capable speaker is of course used to be able to hear what's going on in the bass area of a mix, and a more balanced and full-range speaker system is of course used in the mastering process to be able to hear the overall balance of the whole frequency area.

Even if the NS-10s have a wonky frequency response and not the full bass extension, it has other qualities that Bob Clementine and other good mixing engineers found to be useful, especially for the midrange area where pretty much every sound object occupies and shares in a sound mix, which is, therefore, the most critical frequency area to get right if the mix will translate well to most playback systems out there.

Not everything in audio production is dependent on a flat-frequency response, there is way more to it than just getting the overall balance right.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Wow with that 110Hzish null it gets even worse, almost on par with my laptop speakers. And what's up with that 600-700hz dip?

Yes, the 110hz is a room problem. 600-700hz could be room related too, bounce off the mixing desk perhaps.

 

[Hear Here]

The trend to smaller houses, more 'stuff' that left less room for HiFi, and other things like Colout TV, VCRs and home computers really did it for large 'speakers in most homes.

Yes, but bizarrely people still find room for ugly cube-shaped boxes in their rooms! A carefully-chosen main speaker takes little more floor space than a standmount that is properly placed in relation to adjacent walls and certainly less that the standmounts plus subs.

 

[sigbergaudio]

@Tell and @sigbergaudio

Your concerns about using NS-10s in studios seem to be based on the misconception that a single pair of speakers is the only thing used throughout a whole audio production. However, that is usually not the case, the NS-10s were mostly used as one of many tools during the mixing process as it was found to be highly revealing of possible faults in the important midrange area. A more bass-capable speaker is of course used to be able to hear what's going on in the bass area of a mix, and a more balanced and full-range speaker system is of course used in the mastering process to be able to hear the overall balance of the whole frequency area.

Even if the NS-10s have a wonky frequency response and not the full bass extension, it has other qualities that Bob Clementine and other good mixing engineers found to be useful, especially for the midrange area where pretty much every sound object occupies and shares in a sound mix, which is, therefore, the most critical frequency area to get right if the mix will translate well to most playback systems out there.

Not everything in audio production is dependent on a flat-frequency response, there is way more to it than just getting the overall balance right.

Agreed and I know. I personally don't find the NS10 to be very good at anything compared to modern monitors, but back in the day perhaps they had some advantage in the midrange over other contemporary speakers.

 

[ZolaIII]

Yeah I was just about to write the same, those Yamahas did probably kill a lot of bass, either they didn't know what was down there so if they/we where lucky we might get some bass in our music, or they just put a highpass filter just to be sure nothing happened they didn't have any control over.
Also that 1-2khz bump looks really nasty as well, really don't understand at all how those things became so popular.

View attachment 374916

Hire we go again... NS10's had almost 9" woofer and yes they didn't go very low as they were closed enclosure design. You today have bunch of smaller speakers which are bad ported designs where port frequency is set unhealthy lol and to be dominant (not underlined as it should) to mimic what they can't possibly do, and do it bad until it falls apart completely from failing port function on moderate to high SPL (from pressure of course). Normal mastering engineers used sub's and headphones which could give them bottom two octaves NS10's lacked. Example Bob's Born In USA where drum peek is where it needs to be @ 55 Hz and not exaggerated as in newer electronic gernes.
Turning point whose when good digital equipment become affordable 20+ year's ago and such gernes as Dub Step crawled out from underground to main stream.
Of course it's related and to other reproduction electronic becoming more affordable (sub's and strong Class D amp's).

 

[A Surfer]

I can't help but wonder if the microphones used to record instruments in studios played a role. Has there been changes there? I rarely hear people discuss the effect of the microphones used in studios, but would they not be the very most important piece of recording equipment used?

 

[Sokel]

I can't help but wonder if the microphones used to record instruments in studios played a role. Has there been changes there? I rarely hear people discuss the effect of the microphones used in studios, but would they not be the very most important piece of recording equipment used?

Mics seem to be just fine at the 50's in terms of range:

BASS!

It's rather faint... It is in the general maner but here we only have physical instruments in a 60 years old recording. (hope you didn't measure the YT version,bass there is non existent ,don't know why) That's how it looks like in REW's wav's analyzer: Definitely not a bass champion...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Tell]

@Tell and @sigbergaudio

Your concerns about using NS-10s in studios seem to be based on the misconception that a single pair of speakers is the only thing used throughout a whole audio production. However, that is usually not the case, the NS-10s were mostly used as one of many tools during the mixing process as it was found to be highly revealing of possible faults in the important midrange area. A more bass-capable speaker is of course used to be able to hear what's going on in the bass area of a mix, and a more balanced and full-range speaker system is of course used in the mastering process to be able to hear the overall balance of the whole frequency area.

Even if the NS-10s have a wonky frequency response and not the full bass extension, it has other qualities that Bob Clementine and other good mixing engineers found to be useful, especially for the midrange area where pretty much every sound object occupies and shares in a sound mix, which is, therefore, the most critical frequency area to get right if the mix will translate well to most playback systems out there.

Not everything in audio production is dependent on a flat-frequency response, there is way more to it than just getting the overall balance right.

Of course it's not always the case that they only used the NS10 and that all music from the 80s lacks in bass, but just looking through som google images from studios in the 80s you can see some setups that have only the NS10 and nothing else (might be a sub on the floor, but there might as well not be). Because there where most probably cases where someone wants to build a studio and is told by someone else that the NS10 is the speaker that everyone is using and therefor settle with that because they don't know any better (or have limited budget), especially when the general knowledge of audio was worse than today.

But do you have any other theory why older music aren't as bass heavy as today?

Hire we go again... NS10's had almost 9" woofer and yes they didn't go very low as they were closed enclosure design. You today have bunch of smaller speakers which are bad ported designs where port frequency is set unhealthy lol and to be dominant (not underlined as it should) to mimic what they can't possibly do, and do it bad until it falls apart completely from failing port function on moderate to high SPL (from pressure of course). Normal mastering engineers used sub's and headphones which could give them bottom two octaves NS10's lacked. Example Bob's Born In USA where drum peek is where it needs to be @ 55 Hz and not exaggerated as in newer electronic gernes.
Turning point whose when good digital equipment become affordable 20+ year's ago and such gernes as Dub Step crawled out from underground to main stream.
Of course it's related and to other reproduction electronic becoming more affordable (sub's and strong Class D amp's).

Tbh I'd rather have a slightly badly ported speaker that plays bass than a pair of NS10 that don't. Though I don't know what modern ported speakers have to do with lack of bass in music from a few decades ago? And are you sure that all mastering engineers back in the day used subs and/or headphones?

 

[Scytales]

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?

I do not buy the fact that the bass range only recently became a thing, nor the fact that you can buy competently designed systems in the bass only recently.

It has always been known that the bass range get the lion's share of sound pressure output, even with unamplified acoustical musical sounds.

Check this curve of the standardised filtered pink noise of the German DIN45573 standard of the early '70s for the measurement of loudspeaker power handling:

Also check this excerpt of a professional Swedish magazine from 1961 about bass driver design :

Partial translated text (§3 page 57): In the industry, dynamic bass drivers are now manufactured to meet new demands. Examples: 15-inch type 955 loudspeaker from Goodman (resonant frequency 25 Hz, magnetic flux 0.308.10-2 Wb, flux density approximately 2.7 Wb/m², effective power 25 W) and type 36IIBX from Cabasse (frequency resonance 18 Hz, flux density 1.6 Wb/m², effective power 30 W), see Fig. 2. Both speakers are characterised above all by extremely clear and precise bass reproduction, in addition to very high efficiency. The frequency response curve of the 36IIBX can be seen in Fig. 3. As is obvious, the resonant frequency does not appear at all.

You can find innumerable anecdotal evidences all over the world that your premise is untrue.

 

[ZolaIII]

@Trell physics are physics and that part won't change ever. So you wish... lot for you to learn. There were some material related progress which allows today's driver's to do more today than let's say 50 years ago, but still only to extent and with a cost in other areas. From; stronger magnets, stiffer cones to having much more power on disposal to deal with lower efficiency thanks to heavier cones which of course have higher X max and max L. That of course influenced the designs. Today you have more morons in audio mixing industry than ever before and no equipment progress gona change that ever. Today general purpose woofers with 8" cone diameter can do what 9" one's could 50 years ago with similar efficiency (quite more actually but with purposely designed woofers for sub's but at the mentioned cost and still only additional 1~1.5") and that's about it. Now you have much more marketing telling you things you koow aren't possible. Good port design is to - 3 dB of closed box for woofer and in level with it to give you there 0 dB and tonality remains instead of half cuff tone trying to imitate a octave. Great sub port design is to 0 dB so that you have there +3 dB and higher possible DR. And you can't control port response as pressure equals it loses it's role nor you can EQ that part properly.

 

[Basic Channel]

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

On the music side it's kinda like asking why there is no drums in Bach tunes.

It's tied to increased focus on rhythm imo. Listening to techno music without sub bass is a bit like listening to Bob Dylan when you can't understand the lyrics.

The blues, and then American stuff in the 60s (jazz, Motown, Dylan, reich) all tended towards minimal harmony so that probably leads towards a focus on rhythm. If you are only gonna play one chord, better make it funky.