Why the obsession with the lowest octave


From what is written in these forums and elsewhere see the following for instance.

Scroll down to the chart showing the even lowest instruments in this example recording rolling off very steeply at 40 Hz.

http://www.homerecordingconnection.com/news.php?action=view_story&id=154

It would appear that there is really very little to be heard between 20 and 40 Hz. Yet having true "full range" speakers is often the test of a great speaker. Does anyone beside me think that there is little to be gained by stretching the speakers bass performance below 30-40 cycles?
My own speakers make no apologies for going down to only 28 Hz and they are big floor standers JM Lab Electra 936s.
mechans
A device called a "Subharmonic Synthesizer" can be used to create tones which are not there but which "ought to be" based on what is there. It can sound better than trying to record real tones in the extreme low range.
:-) Hook up a spectrum analyzer. It would probably shock you to think that there is sometimes bass content in some cymbal whacks.
"Hook up a spectrum analyzer."

Good idea!

I had one (Audio Control I think?) years ago. The spectrum analyzer was a display mode on the equalizer as I recall. It is quite educational to see what is really in the sounds you hear frequency-wise, both coming over the wire and as detected in room using a microphone!
Mapman, that kind of sa probably uses frequency bins but may help show what is going on. The issue people forget is that we're not dealing with simple sinusoid signals. A single note from a musical instrument is a very complex sinusoid. That is how the same note from a sax and from a trumpet sound different, or at least they should or our system is really crap.
Dan,

Yes, the resolution of the analyzer I used was limited, but you still got a decent picture of how the music was distributed across the audible frequency spectrum, so that was educational albeit an approximation that does not relate all the details

I'm sure there are some good analyzers out there these days if one is interested, maybe more on the professional gear side.