How important is bass to you?

Very few musicians are even close to being audiophiles, many of them liking loudspeakers that sound like P.A.'s. The JBL L-100 was popular with them in the 70's (the band house I lived in in '71 had a pair of Altec A-7's---our P.A.---in the living room!), most of them listening to music on their computer speakers now, not caring enough about sound to have even an entry-level true hi-fi. But they care a lot about the sound of their recordings, particularly that their part is high enough in the mix!

You're of course right Tostadosunidos. Live sound using P.A.'s is no standard against which to judge hi-fi. It was simple when hi-fi started, as the sound of live orchestras and jazz bands were mostly purely acoustic, orchestras in concert halls and jazz in small clubs without much sound reinforcement. Recordings were simpler back them too, intended to capture the live sound of those group's performances. Such recordings were an appropriate source with which to judge the quality of reproduction.

Comparing recordings of modern bands to their live sound is comparing apples to oranges. Recordings are now often created first, and live performances are judged by how closely they come to matching the recordings, the exact opposite of the old system. But even in comparing a good recording of a, say, Bluegrass group to their live sound leaves me with the impression that the singer's voice and the musician's instruments are but a pale, ghostly apparition, lacking the body and substance---the "thereness"---of their live sound. How much of that is in what the recording is missing? How much of that is due to too little bass? Or group delay/phase shift? Or any other cause? It's from everything! But if a loudspeaker's output is already dropping off at 40Hz, and/or it's output at 40Hz contains high levels of distortion, both of which are more common than we like to admit, attending to the bass in a system is a good place to start.

My speakers (Dynaudio monitors) are listed as going down to 40Hz. When I added a subwoofer I was surprised at how different the sound was for frequencies above the low bass range. Voices went from slightly thin and metallic to very smooth and natural sounding. There seemed to be improvement far beyond the cross-over frequency. And of course the deep stuff is much better. Win/win as far as I can see (and hear).

"10-22-15: Bdp24
Very few musicians are even close to being audiophiles"
True but it doesn't take to be audiophile to sound actually good.

Tostadosunidos,
In my area Ifrequently visit jazz clubs that rarely boost or reinforce the sound. It is a pure acoustic sound. The stand up double bass has a beautiful tone, bloom and warmth. Actually a number of speakers/home systems add more bass energy than I hear live from the real instrument. With home audio systems one can have too much bass as well as too little if the reference is unamplified bass.
Charles.

I'm with you 100% Tostadosunidos. Getting the low bass out of the main speakers improves their sound (less doppler distortion, for one thing), as well as the sub being better at bass to begin with (assuming it's a good one!). It's getting the integration between the speakers and sub(s) right that's the trick.

One musician who is surprisingly (to me, anyway) a critical listener with a real good system (big Wilsons, VTL electronics, VPI table with Lyra cartridge) is Henry Rollins. I wonder what he listens to on it (I know he's into Jazz), and if he uses his system to listen to rough mixes of his own recordings? He's a customer of Brian Berdan at Audio Elements in Pasadena.