35Hz - 25kHz -- A Partial 'Purist'?

If you'd like more information about the physics of sound and music check out this website:

http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/sound/soundtoc.html

There seems to be some misunderstanding about low bass in small rooms, so in an effort to clear this up....

Any enclosed (airtight) space gives a 6dB/octave BOOST as you go down in frequency, beginning roughly where the wavelength of the sound wave is equal to the longest room dimension. For a typical room length of 20 ft, this means that the room is actually adding 6 dB/octave starting around the 50-60 Hz range. This means that a sealed loudspeaker, which would normally roll off at 12 dB/octave in free space, will actually roll off at only 6 dB/octave in the room. Deep bass is actually much easier to achieve in small rooms; the trick is to prevent the speaker or sub from overpowering the midbass region, typically around 60 Hz. This again is a real advantage of the monitor/sub combination, since the main speakers start to roll off in this range and the REL can be brought in lower, around 40 Hz in this example, thus giving a flat in-room response. In contrast, a full-range loudspeaker will often exhibit a midbass peak in this same 50-60 Hz region, which is often very difficult to eliminate, even with careful placement.

This is also why it is so important to "match" loudspeaker size to room size so you don't end up with a hump or suckout. Let's say you put a large full-range speaker that is flat to 30 Hz in a room that begins boosting at 60 Hz; you will end up with a 6dB RISE from 60 to 30 Hz and it will sound "thuddy". Same with a monitor that rolls off at 60 Hz in a room that doesn't boost until 30 Hz; anything below 60 Hz will be MIA and the sound will be incredibly "thin". This is especially true of vented monitors which will roll off at 24 dB/octave through this region. Again, the sub/sat combo allows you to tune virtually any combination of sub and sat to the particular room it is placed in, by virtue of the ability to tune the response through this critical region.

I stand by my previous post on standing wave patterns and I don't think that there is anything in the link above that refutes it. I can understand people using "laws of physics" arguments to deny that cables sound different, or that solid state equipment needs to "burn in", but to say that a subwoofer is not capable of reproducing low frequencies in small rooms ... well I never thought I'd see such a post. I suggest you visit a REL dealer and give the theory a practical examination.

I know very well that small speakers can produce deep bass with enough amplification but to think that large subs are slow and can't keep up with music is poppycock. Bass is slower than midrange and treble that's one of the reasons that it is bass. Some bass drums are ten feet across, kick drums are large, bass guitars have longer and fatter strings. When most people talk about how quick a speakers bass is it's because the speaker has less bass output. If you cross a sub over too high then it will, muddy up the sound. I use a Mirage Fifteen inch sub with my Chario Academy 3 Jr's crossed over at 63hz and it's wonderful. I do not run the mains through the crossover to keep the signal as pure as possible.

Goodness...I would have assumed that all you guys would have used subs. I'm a newbie here, but in the early 90's in college, myself and my friends were BIG into car audio. Not the minitrucks full of subwoofers stuff, but proper systems. I had an 88 4runner at the time with a Denon CD player/tuner(no amp in it)a Nakamichi PA304 30x4 amp running Nakamichi plate speakers up front & polk 6x9's in the back seat area. Boy those polks sucked. A friend of mine talked me into getting another set of plates & a sub. He sold me a pair of Soundstream SS12 reference series subs and a 50 watt soundstream amp. I took them to the local high end home & car audio shop in town where I knew the car audio installer (this was Audio Ecstasy in San Luis Obispo CA...highly recommended!!!...to bad I live in MO now). He checkout out the subs & found one to be bad. He told me that it was because the person that sold them to me didnt run enough power to them. I guess new soundstream stuff isn't so hot, but I guess that these subs were relatively rare...so rare in fact that in trade for the broken sub, he built a custom box, installed the rest of the stuff, completely rewired my system AND gave me a rock bottom deal on an xover & 200w fosgate amp that was powerful enough to run a single sub setup...the box was huge per soundstreams specs and HEAVY..the driver itself was a monster. Anyhow, to make a long story short, I couldn't believe what I was missing...still I wasn't close to where my friends were with their systems, but I was sold. I dont know if I could live without one in any music system.