The sense of space and ambience one perceives from well made live recordings is more dependend on full, accurate reproduction of bass frequencies than other parts of the spectrum.
The pursuit of bass...
Most people would probably say that the most important thing for a speaker to get right is the midrange and I'd have to go along with this myself. If the midrange is too shouty or too recessed or just tonally inaccurate, the other qualities of the speakers are pretty much pointless regardless of how great those qualities might be.
However, with that said, I do not think that the midrange is the most challenging part of a speaker to get right. In my opinion, that award goes to the bass frequencies. Sometimes I listen to a speaker and it is indeed the midrange or treble that is holding back the sound quality, but far more often, for me, it's the low frequencies. I find that I’m more forgiving of midrange flaws. Midrange flaws don’t impact my musical enjoyment as much as bass flaws.
Now, of course, the bass is also the most vulnerable to room acoustics which just exacerbates the problem. But, mostly I blame the speakers themselves. Many fine speaker manufacturers simply ignore the problem by rolling off the bass early. I won't name any specific brands to avoid a flame war, but this is very common. Often I will see specs for frequency response that indicates -6db at 50hz. This is typically very unsatisfying bass. Also, many speakers are not balanced properly across the frequency spectrum so that while they might dig down to 35hz or 40hz, they don't sound like it because the bass is always underwhelming compared to the volume level of the midrange and high frequencies.
The speakers that do attempt to reproduce good solid 40hz bass, often still sound quite bad when reproducing those frequencies. And I'm not talking about pipe organ bass here, I'm talking about the 35hz to 55hz range. Unfortunately, really good minimontors that are amazing with 60hz up, really are missing out on a lot of the presence and atmosphere created by those low frequencies. Emotionally connecting to the music and suspending disbelief is easier with quality bass reproduction. For some reason many audiophiles are willing to live without it. I can understand this since pursing quality bass can be a frustrating endeavor. Also there is cost to consider. Good bass typically comes from bigger speakers and is therefore considerably more costly. But even the best mini-monitors usually commit the sin of omission in the low frequencies.
However, with that said, I do not think that the midrange is the most challenging part of a speaker to get right. In my opinion, that award goes to the bass frequencies. Sometimes I listen to a speaker and it is indeed the midrange or treble that is holding back the sound quality, but far more often, for me, it's the low frequencies. I find that I’m more forgiving of midrange flaws. Midrange flaws don’t impact my musical enjoyment as much as bass flaws.
Now, of course, the bass is also the most vulnerable to room acoustics which just exacerbates the problem. But, mostly I blame the speakers themselves. Many fine speaker manufacturers simply ignore the problem by rolling off the bass early. I won't name any specific brands to avoid a flame war, but this is very common. Often I will see specs for frequency response that indicates -6db at 50hz. This is typically very unsatisfying bass. Also, many speakers are not balanced properly across the frequency spectrum so that while they might dig down to 35hz or 40hz, they don't sound like it because the bass is always underwhelming compared to the volume level of the midrange and high frequencies.
The speakers that do attempt to reproduce good solid 40hz bass, often still sound quite bad when reproducing those frequencies. And I'm not talking about pipe organ bass here, I'm talking about the 35hz to 55hz range. Unfortunately, really good minimontors that are amazing with 60hz up, really are missing out on a lot of the presence and atmosphere created by those low frequencies. Emotionally connecting to the music and suspending disbelief is easier with quality bass reproduction. For some reason many audiophiles are willing to live without it. I can understand this since pursing quality bass can be a frustrating endeavor. Also there is cost to consider. Good bass typically comes from bigger speakers and is therefore considerably more costly. But even the best mini-monitors usually commit the sin of omission in the low frequencies.
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- 30 posts total
Agreed with all that has been said hear regarding getting all frequencies as close to 'right' as possible and the difficulties of getting midrange right as the alternative is often hard on the ears and intolerable. Full spectrum bass adds so much to the enjoyment of listening regardless of type of material; finding a speaker that has as much put into achieving the speed, accuracy, tonality, decay etc....for bass and deep bass frequencies is a very hard task. As others have said, if a speaker gets the bass right for jazz it often produces too much or sloppy bass for other types of music. I'm currently enjoying Focus SEs from Legacy in so many ways; they have excellent price to value/performance and most notably they are incredibly musical and do a great job across the entire spectrum of frequencies. I enjoy very much hearing the subtleties in the all the frequency ranges especially the subtleties of a double bass note in a jazz ensemble or any percussion instrument head being struck at low-mid (i.e. real-world) listening levels. I've heard a number of speakers that get these things right; they often cost much more than the SEs that will be in my system for years to come. |
Putting my designer's hat on, bass is largely a matter of juggling tradeoffs. It's not that difficult to get good bass if you start out with a big enough box. If box size is severely constrained, we must make some hard choices between bass extension and efficiency (and it's not quite so simple as it looks at first glance). On the other hand, the midrange and lower treble are much more difficult to get right. That's where I may spend hundreds of hours during the design phase. A set of equal-loudness curves will graphically illustrate what the ear's sensitivity is at different frequencies across the spectrum. This is a good roadmap for telling us where the ear is especially critical and where it is relatively forgiving. equal loudness curves There is a great deal of useful information in these curves. Now the curves still don't tell us how much each portion the spectrum contributes to overall subjective enjoyment. In my opinion bass in particular needs to be balanced relative to the rest of the spectrum. This means different things for different speakers, and the behavior we want from a given speaker may change depending on the room acoustic situation. In my opinion if one places high priority on really good bass reproduction, the mini-monitor format is too inherently compromised to really deliver. Make the aesthetic tradeoff to a floorstander, taking into account your savings on speaker stands, and you will be well ahead of the game. Or add a good subwoofer system to those mini-monitors. Duke dealer/manufacturer |
Hi Duke, Thanks for posting the "Equal Loudness Curves". This must give the speaker designer something to think about in that if you build a speaker with measured flat response between 3kz and 4kHz it will be perceived as "bright" by the average person. I would also say that because of anticipated room gain you would not need as much boost in the low bass as the curves would imply but correct me if I'm wrong on that. So what this means is that a speaker that measures perfectly flat will sound bright to the average person. Also anemic in the bass if there is inadequate room gain. This makes sense to me as I use an EQ in my large-room system to boost low bass slightly, cut the response a dB or two at 2k, and 3 - 4dB at 4k, and I add couple dB's of boost at 16kHz. |
Building full-range speakers is pretty much a waste of woofers and wood due to the realities of small room acoustics. A speaker should be designed to play down to 70-80hz with little distortion at high volumes. The equalized subwoofer(s) take over below this point. Even massive speakers like the Wilson X-2 and Rockport Arrakis will benefit from this configuration. |
- 30 posts total