The Absurdity of it All

If one talks about the ability to hear (hearing deficiencies) and the like...then that is something as important as any gear you might want to get. I think many people don't pay attention to that. Feeling is another subject entirely.

@stuartk, sorry about my delayed response. The visceral sensation is created by frequencies below 300 Hz. It is in this region that room acoustics cause the most trouble. Go to a rock concert at a large indoor venue and you get very powerful one note bass, boom, boom, boom. Go to an outdoor venue and you get beautiful bass. However, small indoor venues like Jazz clubs and larger indoor venue where acoustics were appropriately managed like Boston's Symphony Hall can give you wonderful sound. But the small rooms we usually listen to our systems in literally choke the bass below 100 Hz. Getting these frequencies right requires clever acoustic management, a lot of power both amplifier and driver and digital room control.

First point:  room acoustic can be controlled mechanically in a more powerful way than electronically...

Second point: i listen cello,tuba, and piano not heavy metal then over 40 hertz clear bass is enough and i have it in a 13 feet square room...I have a 52 watts amplifier, my sub is disconnected because i dont need it and any way only one sub in a small room is not ideal at all....

Third point no generalization are good.... There is different needs and different methods to reach a goal....

mahgister, how much experience do you have actually measuring room acoustics and correcting defects with both acoustic management and digital EQ? Do not tell me you can do it with your hearing because no one can even well trained mastering engineers can not EQ an environment by ear. They pull out the measurement microphone. I suggest you buy one. What you will see when you measure your system is a mess.
If there is an exception to my generalization I have not seen or heard it. 
When someone tells me they have "clear" bass that usually means they have almost no bass below 80 Hz. Because if you did without digital EQ the bass would be muddy and confused. 

mahgister, how much experience do you have actually measuring room acoustics and correcting defects with both acoustic management and digital EQ?

How much experience do you have actually "listening" to the same room acoustic with both passive materials treatment and active mechanical controls with a grid of 32 Helmholtz resonators finely tunable each one?

it is exactly like piano tuning by human ears but it takes some time because it was not my professional job...

When someone tells me they have "clear" bass that usually means they have almost no bass below 80 Hz. Because if you did without digital EQ the bass would be muddy and confused.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to have the tuba melodic line clearly with only 80 hertz bass...

I have it then my bass is clear to a point around at least 50 hertz and even under, but less so clear .... If i choose to disconnect my sub there is a reason....I am limited by the specs of my speakers even if they are spectacular with bass....

This cd contain one hour of tuba notes.... A very fine cd i recommend it....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olIrf-uioD8

They pull out the measurement microphone. I suggest you buy one. What you will see when you measure your system is a mess.

I dont doubt what you say here.... Are you surprized?

But what you dont catch is that this "mess" is the result of my fine tuning for my EARS first...This measured mess is the speakers design response in my uncontrolled room...But after the finetuning of my grid relatively to my specific speakers response, it is no more an absolute mess, it is a "mess" correlated to my specific ears desire .... It is the way i hear timbre voices and instrument that is my rule for ALL THE ROOM .... Not a very selected range of frequencies for a very narrow location in millimeter out of which all your measures are a real mess... I will remind you that i listen from 2 positions in my room....Not just one....  



And it is not an absolute mess at all sorry.....I am sure that your "clean" acoustic will not be so good for me...But will sound artificial....

I think you dont understand that my speakers specs are not modified by the electronic equalization like in your case, my mechanical equalisation is carried out continuously by devices which are now part of my room and they modify the room without modifying the speakers responses even if i used in my own way with my H.R. grid the speakers responses ....And the fine tuning by ears use the relatively large band of voice timbre coming from the speakers and is very "finely" tunable at any time....

No electronical equalization can replace a room acoustic treatment ....NONE...An E.E. is not a room treatment at all...

But my mechanical equalization is a ROOM tretament ALSO, and not only an equalizer on his own right also, adapted exactly to my speakers timbre response (not frequencies response) without modifying their natural original design colored response....Like your equalization....

@mijostyn: many thanks for the detailed response. I've grown to accept my system's limited bass response (monitors without a sub). If I had a dedicated room, I'd treat it, but that's not an option at this point. 

@tonywinga: " Making decisions about what gear to buy or changes to make is exhausting and stressful- like a building project".

I gave up buying gear I couldn't demo at home with a return policy a long time ago. While this does somewhat limit my choices, it also eliminates the risk of costly mistakes and therefore, reduces, to some degree, the level of stress.