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

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...

Duke

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, 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...

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Duke

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 .