Why is good, deep bass so difficult? - Myths and their Busters

Erik,

+1 on this statement.

"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."

Kenny.

The issue with deep bass is that it requires sacrifice to implement. Remove every sacrifice, and you are left with two choices:

• Bass limited systems
  
• Muddy sounding, unpleasant bass

And while audiophiles are accustomed to sacrificing in some ways, the ways of deep bass require sacrifices a lot are unable or unwilling to make.

For instance, adding an EQ. Well, you just spend $80,000 on a new dCS DAC stack, you are going to be really unwilling to put a new ADC/DSP/DAC in your chain. This is one good reason for using a sub, so the EQ stays out of the chain of your main speakers.

Bass traps are another sacrifice. It’s not just money, GIK’s Soffit Traps are quite affordable, it is also floor space and WAF. I know of some audipohiles who refuse to do any room tuning at all, but will spend thousands on cables. UGH. Talk about badly balanced priorities!

Then of course there is the amount of time it takes to learn and appreciate the integration a sub requires. It must integrate to the room and the speakers. In addition to finding the best location you are playing speaker designer when you do this, so a background in crossover design is a big help in configuring the EQ and crossover settings. This is a lot of work to develop a skill you will need once.

Alternatives are subs with really good auto-EQ, like JL Audio. Overall too expensive, but really good auto-EQ. When shopping for a subwoofer the most important aspect is the quality of the auto-EQ features. Advice from owners is a big help here, as is an in-store demonstration. HT receivers have this feature as well, with wildly different results.

For all these reasons, I think, an audiophile is right to be trepidatious and maybe even avoid really deep bass. The smaller speaker isn’t faster, it is easier to live with and less likely to bait the dragons that lie in the last 2 octaves. From an overall balance, a limited bass speaker is usually much more room friendly, and therefore, more satisfying to live with.

Erik, I agree that deep bass can be problematic. In my situation, in my large room (16.5' X 34', which includes the kitchen/dining room, w/cathedral ceilings in main living room area). I'm using two subs, a 15" passive Tannoy and 12" Velodyne that I converted into a ported sub with a plate amp and two 3" ports, and Eminence driver (can't remember the model).

I guess you could say I avoided much of the room induced bass problems by using subs that don't go down that deep, not much lower than 30Hz, if that. The two subs are situated katty-corner from each other, the 15" Tannoy next to the L/H Tannoy HPD, the Eminence 14' away.

Due to mostly dumb luck and patience, I was able to integrate these subs into my mostly-music oriented system without exciting any nasty room nodes. My room was very bass-friendly to my 12" Tannoys before the addition of the subs, with the subs, the bass response is nearly perfect to my ears. I do have a modest HT system included in the system, and it sounds great in that mode, but what I've done was all about the music. I hate boomy bass!

There are no room treatments of any kind, nor do I feel the need for them. I consider myself very fortunate indeed.

Best regards,
Dan

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.

I couldn’t agree more. I made that mistake, of going for a big speaker as my first foray into this madness and it simply overloaded my room. The speakers were Legacy Classics. Having gone through several other speakers I’ve found the goldilocks speaker for my room: a monitor. I have no need for a sub as I get very tangible bass down to the mid 30s with the low 30s and upper 20s reasonably represented.

It’s tight, tuneful and full of tone, and very well delineated. The only downside is that they’re rear ported so there’s that secondary piling on at certain frequencies but it’s easily tolerable and maybe I’ll look into something else to quell it but it’s not a deal breaker, in the least. Others don’t notice it until I point it out.

All the best,
Nonoise