Why is good, deep bass so difficult? - Myths and their Busters
This is a theme that goes round and round and round on Audiogon. While looking for good sources, I found a consultancy (Acoustic Frontiers) offering a book and links:
Every audiophile who is dissatisfied with the bass in their room should read these free resources.
Let me state unequivocally, deep bass is difficult for the average consumer. Most audiophiles are better off with bass limited speakers, or satellite/subwoofer systems. The former limits the danger you can get into. The latter has the most chance of success IF PROPERLY IMPLEMENTED.
The idea that large drivers/subs are slow is a complete and utter myth. Same for bass reflex. The issue is not the speed of the drivers. The issue is usually that the deeper a speaker goes the more it excites room modes, which the audiophile is then loathe to address.
Anyway, please read away. I look forward to reading comments.
I’m not sure how many different ways I can type this. If you are thinking of resonance cabinet control it is VERY different than what I am describing.
Imagine an open baffle speaker design of zero mass resting on frictionless rollers. As music plays, the speaker will roll back and forth on the skates, and the acoustic output will be reduced. This is the equal and opposite reaction to the energy of the motor acting on the baffle/motor and motor frame. This is a matter of force, leverage, and mass.
Is it an issue? I don’t know, I have had a number of people whose opinions I trust say they get better bass out of monitors with additional mass, which need not be particularly modern. An antique iron would work if it was heavy enough.
I don’t know but I have a sneaking suspicion nobody ever ran curves for anything from the listening position. That’s not something in an audiophile’s bag of tricks. 👜 What audiophiles do is try something. Listen. Move it a little. Listen again. Try something else. Listen again. Ad infinitum. And they wonder why audiophiles frequently come down with a bad case of audio nervousa. 😬
It’s not really a mass issue for the tops of speakers. It’s placing something that acts like a diode and allows the otherwise trapped energy in the speaker cabinet to rapidly escape to the outside air via a path of least resistance. This is why things like those Totem Beaks or cones, especially NASA grade ceramic DH Cones, very hard but not very massive, but massive enough, are often so effective placed on top of speakers. 🍦 There used to be a product Tekna Sonic that was purpose built for attaching to speaker cabinets that accomplished the same thing. For the same reason cones can often be placed on top of the electronics chassis or tube traps and accomplish the same sort of thing, dissipate energy rapidly from the system. Crystals also dissipate mechanical energy in similar circumstances.
The weights issue of course is very much speaker dependent. :) I’m certainly not saying it is THE solution to THE speaker problem. :)
This particular issue isn’t resonance within the speaker panels so much as force and leverage vs. the mass of the entire speaker being able to rock the entire assembly. Of course, those of you with 200 lb speakers can ignore this issue.
The woofer motor exerts quite a bit of force that changes rapidly. This could in theory actually move the speaker, or tilt it, causing some self-cancellation akin to the Doppler effect.
Should you spend a lot of time and money on this particular issue? I don’t think so. I used to own Focal Profile 918. Rather tall, light weight speakers with woofers mounted relatively high. That is the type of speaker I think would benefit most.
Having force up high gives it more leverage, and more ability to rock the speaker back on it's rear feet. The Profile was easy to knock over even with after-market supports.
The theory is basic physics, but I haven't done any modelling in regards to "normal" woofer forces and speaker masses. If you are worried, put a nice steel weight on top and listen. Then if you hear no difference at all send me a case of Casamigos tequila on top of which you have written the words "You were totally wrong."
Placing weights on the top of a speaker may change the sound, for the better, I don't know, my speakers have sloped tops so I can test that out. I can tell you that you will not control cabinet resonance by adding weight. You might change the resonance point. Remember that light objects have higher resonance, more massive objects have much lower and much more difficult to control resonance. Simply take a wine glass and ping it with you finger nail. Now to stop the glass from ringing simply touch it with your finger. Two laws of physics come into play here. The first is that low mass objects will resonant at a high frequency. the second is that composite objects will more quickly do away with unwanted resonance. When you touch the wine glass with your finger you are essentially creating a composite of materials, your finger and the glass. Two disparate materials.
So I conclude with this: Purchase speakers that are made from composite materials. Two do not always assume that those big heavy massive speakers will have better bass.
15" and larger woofers are key to good bass. You can’t beat the advantage of a large surface area except with multiple woofers. Multiple woofers are harder to drive so not a good choice. Basically....
One 15" woofer is equivalent to Two 12" woofers Three 9" woofers Six 6" woofers
The amp controls the woofer and the air suspension suppresses the resonance of the woofer if properly designed. A woofer designed to work without a box may have a stiffer suspension but these are an exception rather than the norm.
Soundrealaudio wrote: "[Woofers] must use very stiff suspensions to bring them back to neutral position after each excursion."
The suspension system is not what brings the woofer's cone back to the neutral position. IT IS THE AMP!! As long as the amp is sending signal to the woofer, ITS MOTION IS ALWAYS BEING POWERED BY THE AMP!! It never has to rely on the suspension system alone. In more technical terms, Qts is almost always dominated by Qes; Qms typically makes only a minor contribution to Qts.
To state "a 10" woofer will not keep up with a 6" midrange. Too much mass." is to oversimplify the situation. For one thing, different 10" woofers and 6" midrange drivers have differing amounts of mass; there are some 10" woofers with less moving mass than some 6" midrange drivers. But more importantly, the moving mass of any given driver is only one factor determining it’s "speed"---the size of the driver’s motor (magnet) is a huge factor. A driver with higher moving mass and a bigger motor can outperform a driver with lower moving mass but a smaller motor. By the way, the perceived "speed" of a driver is more a matter of how fast it stops moving when the signal does, and returns to "rest", than it is of how fast it starts moving. The cone of a dynamic driver not stopping when it should is called overshoot. As Newton’s Laws of Motion state, "A body in motion tends to stay in motion"---my own over-simplification!
Likewise, the statement "They must use very stiff suspensions to bring them back to neutral position after every excursion" is not universally true. The stiffness of a suspension is only one factor in the design of any driver, one needing to be balanced against other factors. Some very high performance woofers have stiff suspensions, some don’t. Acoustic Suspension designs (sealed enclosures) require suspensions with far less stiff suspensions than do Bass Reflex, for instance.
Woofers ARE often placed in MDF enclosures, but they don’t have to be, and sometimes aren’t. Baltic Birch plywood is a popular material used by some makers of high-performance subs. That plywood is far stiffer than MDF, it’s resulting resonance at a higher frequency than that of MDF, optimally far above the x/o frequency of the subwoofer.
"Massive objects resonate at frequencies that are hard, very hard to deal with". Sorry, also not necessarily the case. Internal bracing very easily and effectively deals with subwoofer enclosure-wall resonances, the braces pushing those resonances above any frequency the sub will be called upon to reproduce, reducing their audibility to below perceptible levels.
That a 12/15" woofer is "slow" is a myth, I’m sorry, I’ve proven it over and over again and much smarter physicists than I have explained it. The real issue is that they produce too much deep bass, which integrates poorly in a room without attention. Give me bass traps, EQ and a pair of 15-18" woofers and I’ll scare you right out of the room they are so fast.
As I recall, the large woofers have to move fractions of the small woofer, and have much larger motors, so any issues of mass are more than offset by efficiency (in regards to displacement vs. Hz). Rule of thumb I learned a long time ago, and I may misremember, is that doubling the drivers is the equivalent of using a single driver 2" larger.
So for instance, 2x 8" = 1 x 10" driver. 2 x 10" = 1 x 12" and so forth.
Point is, there is just no substitute for raw surface area if you want deep and low distortion bass. As I noted at the first posting that started this thread, I can really see why this myth is so attractive.
Now, about movement, yeah, you have something, not only the baffle, but the entire speaker can move due to the woofer forces. Cheap fix: Add weights to the top of a speaker. Like 20 lbs at a time. :)
My system for the three years was using stereo subs and a DSPeaker Antimode 2.0 to do the room correction . I was happy with my bass response until I heard a distributed bass setup at a listening session at another audio files home .Back to the drawing board . I added in two more subs . Installed hi pass caps in my amps used my DSPeakers crossover and stereo sub correction function and good old listening to adjust the levels and now have the best most even bass response in my listening room to date . Duke is right in this case more subs is less boom in the room .
1. Most woofers double. 40 Hz turns quickly to 80 Hz. 2. The law of physics would dictate that a 10" woofer will not keep up with a 6" midrange. Too much mass. They must use very stiff suspensions to bring them back to neutral position after each excursion. 3. Woofers are screwed into a large piece of MDF. The very back and forth movement of the diaphragm causes that piece of MDF to resonate. 4. Massive objects resonate at frequencies that are hard, very hard to deal with.
There are a lot of good points here. . . I thought my 20.1 Maggies went low until I got the subs set up and dialed in. The difference is incredible. Friends come over and expect to be blown from their seats but with proper speaker placement, using multiple subs, and room correction all they get is an tuneful accurate sound. The support that the subs give to music is very satisfying. After I get asked to turn it up two or three times and get close to symphonic concert levels comments are that the system is so "clear." They don't understand how it can be so loud but not hurt their ears. While I don't think people need to be acoustical engineers or physicists to get the best from their systems understanding basics can make a huge impact. Room interactions are almost as important as the system itself in my opinion.
Most speakers will provide plenty of bass. My personal experience with a pair of Elac FS209.2's for stereo use, running them with a cheap DAC and a fairly cheap amp (adcom GFA 5802) was that they were completely under performing when it came to bass. I was using good cables (cardas neutral reference) I tried a sub woofer and it just didn't match the speakers in there quickness... mind you I tried with a home theater sub and not a musical sub.... Then I read some where that they were a demanding speaker and required a good amp to command them properly. Fast forward to today with some front end equipment upgrades I'm getting very impressive bass from these speakers and have no need or desire for any kind of sub... I have effectively solved my bass issues.
The low end notes are so tight and precise it still amazes me... who ever hears my system asks me where the sub is... lol My main upgrades were a new DAC (Yggdrasil) and new bryston 7B3 mono blocks.. Also a used LS26... but the preamp was the final edition and bass was achieved prior to its integration in to the stereo. I can strongly suggest that the majority of lack of bass issues is the result of inadequate quality amplification.. As another poster here already mentioned... Now that I have bass ... fine tuning it is another story altogether ... now we get into speaker placement and room treatments....
The two bass panels of the Magneplanar Tympani-IV and IVa are used by planar speaker fanatics as woofers for other loudspeakers. There is one guy on the Planar Speaker Asylum forum who has Martin Logan ESL mains, Tympani-IVa bass panels, and an Eminent Technology TRW-17 Rotary Subwoofer!
gkr7007 wrote: "...I gravitate toward planars and other very fast response speakers."
Planars are subjectively "fast" because they have smoother in-room response than monopoles (even though the actual low-frequency transient response of their diaphragms is often quite poor, certainly not "fast" at all). This smoother in-room response of dipoles arises from the 180 degree phase difference between the backwave and frontwave, which effectively launch in opposite directions. When the frontwave and backwave meet up again, after several bounces off of room surfaces, their phase response is significantly more randomized than would be the case for a monopole speaker’s room bounces. And the sum of highly random-phase bass energy is much smoother than the sum of largely in-phase bass energy. "Decorrelation" is the proper word... decorrelation = smoothness, and is highly desirable in the bass region, and is something big rooms do better than small rooms. Decorrelation is also the advantage that a distributed multisub system offers over a single big sub... same basic mechanism as planars, but set in motion by different means.
As the wavelengths get very long relative to the room dimensions, planars tend towards cancellation because half of their in-room energy is out of phase with the other half, so planars don’t make very good subwoofers unless they are very big and can move a lot of air, and are in a big room.
In general, two intelligently-positioned monopole subs approximate the in-room bass smoothness of a single dipole main speaker. So it takes four intelligently-positioned monopole subs to approximate the in-room smoothness of two dipole mains speakers.
Skanda wrote: "Do sealed speakers integrate better into these rooms?"
It’s ALWAYS a matter of speaker + room, and if the room is contributing a lot of boundary reinforcement, sealed boxes generally result in better synergy. If not, then vented boxes generally result in better synergy. I can go into more detail if you’d like, BUT the specifics ALWAYS matter more than these sort of generalities.
* * * *
A lot of different suggestions have come up in this thread, things that have obviously worked for the people who tried them. Because of the ear’s exaggerated sensitivity to small changes in SPL at low frequencies (shown by the bunching up of equal-loudness curves south of 100 Hz), combined with its poor time-domain resolution (which is why we can’t localize the source of very low frequency sine waves), we can infer that the improvements we hear are primarily due to changes in SPL, even if they "sound like" changes in "speed".
At the risk of over-simplifying, and being open to correction on any of these points, some things simply make a bigger difference than others. To set the stage, it’s not uncommon for in-room response across the bass region to have peak-to-dip swings of ballpark 12 dB, or +/- 6 dB. Changes to speaker damping (mechanical or electrical or acoustics) seldom result in more than a 1 dB difference, but in the low bass region that's as audible as a 2 dB change in the mids. Improvements to room acoustic damping (bass trapping) can result in 2 dB or maybe 3 dB reduction of the maximum peak-to-dip swings. EQ is generally good at chopping off the peaks but not so good at filling deep dips, still +/- 3 dB is often feasible, and perhaps better if optimized for a small sweet spot. A distributed multisub system results in smaller and more numerous peaks and dips (which has psychoacoustic benefit), with +/- 3 dB over a wide listening area being reported by many users. Remember, smooth bass = "fast" bass, perceptually.
The good news is, these different approaches are not mutually exclusive. You can start with one and then add another as your piggy bank recovers.
One final implication of the bunching up of the equal-loudness curves south of 100 Hz is, there is subjectively a LOT of room for improvement over the typically poor low frequency response of most speaker/room combinations.
For great bass you must isolate your speakers from there environment, remove the spikes and replace with Townshend Audio Seismic Podiums or Seismic Speaker Bars, your speakers will then be free from any boom or distortion which will allow you to hear/fill your speakers best bass performance plus the rest of the frequency’s become much clearer open and natural please check Max Townshend you tube video Spikes v Podiums I use Podiums with my Sound labs Dynatats my bass is awesome, the hole sound has improved good luck but great bass is very possible once you have isolated your speakers from there environment.
The amps and speaker matching are certainly a factor. I remember the first time I really heard a difference in amps was watching the dealer swap in a Tandberg to play Snell A/IIIs.
Remarkable power, smoothness and extension. I was quite enamored. The "trick" to the Snell's bass was woofers with significant amounts of added mass however, so it is unlikely these drivers have survived up until now.
I recently owned a Tandberg amp again, though, and have to concur with the original reviews which called them grainy on the mid/treble. << sigh >>
harry:
Very few speaker designers really appreciate the value of designing speakers for a room / location instead of quasi-anechoic. That's how I design mine and it's a huge help.
Slightly different topic. That is about perceived impact and multi-way speaker design with passive filters. Impact is not actually deep bass. That’s just regular bass. :)
A powered subwoofer would skip the inductor/filter issue altogether.
Not the first time I have read this statement, so there may be some truth to that, but there are a couple of myths too. Good cored inductors with very low DC start rather inexpensively. The issue with designing a low pass filter is more complicated than merely reducing the DCR. No one should start replacing coils willy-nilly. There are a number of issues that can be introduced by doing so.
i actually know what 16 HZ sounds and feels like....on Sundays
My video system goes down to 16 Hz - but really you don't hear as much as feel at that frequency!
My main audio system is 3 dB down at 20 Hz - adequate for just about any music. You can be happy with speakers that have not much below 30 Hz, but once you know what is there, it is hard not to miss it.
I have always found that a very important part of good bass response is the damping factor of the amp, the ability of the amp to control the excursion of the bass driver. I've had some pretty expensive equipment over time where the mids and highs were fantastic but the bottom end was lacking. In most all cases the damping factor was low. I also learned that I more enjoy a smaller sub in a sealed box (as opposed to ported), especially since I gravitate toward planars and other very fast response speakers.
I agree with audiokinesis. I have used Thiel 3.5's for years, which with their equalizer are flat down to 16-20hz. The ultimate bass system: 4 or 5 of these in an ITU multichannel configuration. Virtually all room nodes are eliminated. Two of them in stereo, because Jim Thiel designed them for optimum sound in a very room-friendly design, can generally be positioned in a room to minimize their room-node response and at the same time, excellent stereo soundstaging..
Equally important, study the basics of sound physics so you know what you are doing/looking for, and if in a general living area, use furniture, curtains, bookshelves, etc to serve as sound modifiers and even psuedo-bass traps. Good smooth bass can be done, but not in ignorance. It requires knowledge and experimentation and a willingness to find the proper speaker locations and then design the remainder of the room layout around that.
This has been an incredibly informative thread. I have a small listening area and use monitors and while I don't have _too_ many bass issues, i do have a node somewhere around 50-60hz. For some practical reasons, I would like a floor stander in my room. Have any of you used sealed speakers - something like magico comes to mind. I am not asking for speaker recs/reviews and don't want to derail this thread...My question is simply, do sealed speakers integrate better into these rooms? Wish I could do an in-home demo to test but that's not an option currently.
Without bass eq, unless you are in a anechoic chamber, the bass notes will smear the other bass notes, and coherency is impossible, which is essential to good, clean, deep bass.
I didn't read this entire thread. If this point has been made, then consider this a +1.
A long time ago I did a lot of reading. One of my favorite sites was www.humblehomemadehifi.com . Tony G said it plainly, and often; for tight impactful bass, you must use a cored low Rdc inductor.
I use the Mundorf Zero Ohm types.
Why don't manufacturers use them? They're anywhere from $200.00 to $500.00 each (depending of size). Since we need one in each speaker, this means $400.00 to $1,000.00 just for the inductors. Are you kidding me. These dollar values constitute the entire crossover cost, if not less.
If you own a 3-way or a 4-way, take the leap. Open up the speaker, get the large inductor value, and order them. Yes the lower resistance will shift the crossover slightly, but the gains will be huge.
I agree whole heartedly with Duke's comments from Audiokinesis and would like to point out if you don't want to do room treatment and have the budget you should try out the Lyngdorf TDAI 2170 with Room Perfect ($4000 to $5000 depending on options). This includes a world class DAC and electronic crossover network at the base price. Now I admit I am a dealer for Lyngdorf and will financially benefit if you purchase one from me, of course, the upside to you will be the best possible sound your system can provide, It is easy to use and when you are old and feeble you will still be able to pick it up and move it. I do have some lucky customers with Duke's swarm and the Lyngdorf and they are perhaps the happiest of all. Smooth bass as low as it can go.
good room ratios, enough volume, lots of bass traps, nice powerfull amp and strong stereo subwoofers make for clean deep bass without spending 20k on cables or whatever else...
i also got the Mytek Brooklyn and honestly its pretty extended in the low end really clean also, and no compromise on the rest of the spectrum its driving a Mcintosh252 with Eggelstonsworks Rosa and two Velodynes Spl12, with a large back wall full of basstrap and each corners of the room treated as well, my room is rather small and the results are quite amazing. all bought second hand except the Mytek, I use also a Grace M903 from time to time with similar low end but different top end (slightly harder)
I call that hi end audiophile on a budget!
I couldn't get the bass right without the proper amount of bass trapping no matter the ratio of the room .
"This is one reason I have a *pair* of Golden Ear Triton Reference. Each one on its own eliminates the need for a sub, let alone the two of them combined." - gdhal
Yup, when it comes to using multiple bass sources in the pursuit of in-room smoothness, the more the merrier.
In general, with intelligently distributed multiple subs (and there are different distribution strategies), the in-room bass roughness is approximately cut in half for every doubling of the number of subs. So two subs are potentially twice as smooth as one, and four subs are potentially twice as smooth as two... and eight subs are grounds for divorce in most states.
"audiokinesis, thanks for the Acme Audio Engineering School lecture." - geoffkait.
I flunked the Acme Laws of Physics class... which teaches that gravity doesn’t start working until you look down...
One way to get smooth in-room bass is the distributed multi-sub system. Inevitably, each of the subs generates a unique in-room peak-and-dip pattern (and this is true for any listening location within the room). BUT the SUM of these dissimilar peak-and-dip patterns is significantly smoother than any one of them on its own.
This is one reason I have a *pair* of Golden Ear Triton Reference. Each one on its own eliminates the need for a sub, but the two of them (subs) combined sounds even better.
geoffkait wrote: "I hate to judge before all the facts are in but it appears a big advantage of headphones is you can get very good bass performance without all the angst, effort and cost oft required to obtain very good bass performance for speaker systems. And that’s if you’re lucky and don’t actually make matters worse."
Headphones are a lot of fun, but they are not good for accurate bass reproduction. This is at least in part because a) we perceive bass, and in particular deep bass and impact, with our whole bodies - not just our ears; and 2) there is no room reverberation tail on the notes, and room reverberation done right improves our ability to perceive pitch accurately, plus room reverberation is a component of perceived loudness (sounds that last a little bit longer are perceived as being louder).
If headphones were good for bass, they would dominate in the recording industry. Mixing and mastering would be done on headphones. Instead mixing is usually done on small nearfield monitors, and mastering on big main monitors, and if headphones are used at all, they are never relied on to tell the truth in the bass region. Some beginners hope to rely on headphones for mixing in their "budget" home studios, and you can find and follow their painful learning curves on prosound forums... you know, where those other Acme graduates end up...
but even before that buy or borrow a copy of the Master Handbook of acoustics and learn a little about the physics - it will cut the time spent with the measurement mic by a lot
3rd... room tmts.
4th - bigger speakers or subs - a multi-sub setup can be very effective
and.. as per a post above - Get The Mid-range Right before anything else
Designing and building a woofer system that is theoretically flat to a very low frequency is not that difficult, but it is of academic interest only once that woofer system is placed in a room: At low frequencies, the room’s effects are totally dominant.
There is usually a LOT of room for improvement at low frequencies. Equal-loudness curves predict that the ear is especially sensitive to differences in SPL (peaks and dips) at low frequencies. A 5 dB change at 40 Hz sounds like a doubling of loudness, the same as a 10 dB change at 1 kHz. (This also explains why it takes so long to fine-tune the level control on a subwoofer system - a small change in SPL makes a disproportionate change in perceived loudness.) Therefore, smoothing the in-room bass makes a greater subjective improvement than we would have expected from eyeballing the before-and-after curves.
We all want "fast" bass, but what is often not appreciated is that "smooth bass" IS "fast bass". Literally. Because speaker + room = a linear phase system at low frequencies, the time-domain response and frequency response track one another. Fix one, and you have fixed the other. Because room effects are dominant at low frequencies, the most direct path to "fast" bass includes addressing those room effects.
The precise details of the room’s effects differ from room to room, but the basic issue of room-induced, large, highly audible peaks-and-dips is pretty much universal, and there are similarly universal solutions. Remember this is an acoustic problem, so it is most efficiently addressed with an acoustic solution.
One way to get smooth in-room bass is the distributed multi-sub system. Inevitably, each of the subs generates a unique in-room peak-and-dip pattern (and this is true for any listening location within the room). BUT the SUM of these dissimilar peak-and-dip patterns is significantly smoother than any one of them on its own.
An example of a non-acoustic solution would be equalization. When we fix the response of a single subwoofer at a single listening position with EQ, we are (almost inevitably) making the response worse somewhere else. And as we widen the area where we want to make an improvement with EQ, we reduce the amount of improvement that can be made. Distributed multisubs + EQ can work REALLY well, because the multiple subs significantly reduce the spatial variation in frequency response (in addition to making the frequency response significantly smoother), such that if we still need EQ, chances are it will be addressing a global (room-wide) problem, rather than a local one, so it will not be making the response worse elsewhere in the room.
In my experience - which admittedly includes a disproportionate amount of work with distributed multisub systems - a good distributed multisub setup is more effective from a sound quality standpoint than EQ or room treatment alone... though of course the use of one does not preclude the use of the others. Deepest loudest bass for the dollar comes from using a single equalized ubersub, but quantity without quality becomes fatiguing over time.
There are quite a few different ways to implement a distributed multisub system. The main points are, use enough subs (small ones are fine) and get ’em spread out.
Imo, ime, ymmv, etc.
Duke (yeah I got a dog in the fight... four small ones, actually...)
For accurate information on the Eminent Technology TRW-17 Rotary Subwoofer, read Peter Moncrieff’s IAR review of this revolutionary (no pun intended ;-) product.
Over the years I've had multiple setups with subs. Sometimes they are very frustrating to get integrated, so the system doesn't sound like it has sub woofers, this last time was the most frustrating, as the room had terrible acoustics in the bass region (the room added a single bass note, no matter what the bass player was playing). It took a LOT of patience and time, a calibration microphone and the REW software to help me place 10 bass traps, but when I finally got the subs "dialed in", I'm in "bass heaven"! Oh, I have a pair of JL Audio F113V2 subs, augmenting a pair of Focal Sopra No2's.
omg Wolf that is funny when nobody is looking i will flip the fuse on the church organ ......which sounds quite lovely run into those two little ribbons into my high speed B77
i actually know what 16 HZ sounds and feels like....on Sundays
Geoffkait is right…you can also get most of the joy of driving high performance cars from video games, and great food is available by simply looking at photos of it. It's not necessary to go outside to experience nature when high def TV has it all right there! I make the mistake of working with live musicians frequently when really, I should stay home festooned with my Grados and avoid crowds and pesky personal hygiene. I actually asked Jim Campilongo if he's tried reversing the fuse direction in his Princeton Reverb…no answer…at least he didn't take a swing at me.
Clean bass needs a Q of 0.7 or less and two 15 inch woofers in most
domestic settings. (4 x 12" woofers will be equivalently capable.) I
rarely see this kind of setup on Audiogon so I don’t think many people
are even aware of the issues raised by Erik.
The Classic Audio Loudspeakers that I have (model T-3.3) use dual 15" drivers, one forward firing and one down firing. The model T-1 employs a 15" forward firing and an 18" down firing. Both cut off at about 20Hz and are 98db 1 watt/1 meter. I regard the bass as very musical- its is very nuanced and has plenty of wallop.
A subwoofer system that solves many bass/room issues is the Swarm by Audiokinesis. It employs mulitple small subs and so effectively reduces room nodes, standing waves and the like.
I hate to judge before all the facts are in but it appears a big advantage of headphones is you can get very good bass performance without all the angst, effort and cost oft required to obtain very good bass performance for speaker systems. And that's if you're lucky and don't actually make matters worse.
Extension is only part of the sound and you don't need a lot of extension to listen to acoustic bass or bass guitar (lowest note 41.2Hz). My current speakers, with larger woofers, have worse (by 5Hz) extension than previous speakers but bass sounds much better. It is not extension or dynamics, but just sound of the bass (both bass reflex). Attack and decay of the note sounds right (natural). I also suspect that distortion is lower (woofers without spider-web suspension, larger volume).
Previous speakers had 2 1/2 way xover meaning that one woofer covers bass and midrange while the other supports low bass. That way it is possible to stretch extension from small woofers in smaller cabinets but it won't sound as good as larger woofer.
Most of the woofers have overhung motor construction that produces more distortions while only few manufacturers (Including Acoustic Zen) use underhung motor, perhaps because it requires much larger magnets.
Dave, I'm now in a completely open floorplan, so no room loading. Previously, yes!
Rather than the Behringer, I like the miniDSP line. Easier to control via windows UI, and I can feed it directly from OmniMic. I measure the response and then have OmniMic calculate a correction curve, and I'm done.
What I like about OmniMic is my ability to tailor the target curve. I usually go for a 1 to 2 dB/octave descending slope starting at 16-20 Hz for the sub. JL does a similar thing.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
