A full range speaker?

Actually, no. As always try to pick an expert with broad based experience setting up systems in real rooms with live unamplified music as the reference.

while many excellent speaker designers utilize an Anechoic chamber in testing, development and very importantly QC ( and component matching ( see utube video on production of Vandersteen Treo for example ) they also listen in duh… real rooms. Any of the powered bass models from Vandersteen for example include 11 bands of EQ … below 120 hz. Those 11 bands are based not on octaves but on typical room modes in a wide survey of  listening rooms…( ya somebody was thinking.. ) place speakers for best imaging, dial bass in. 
So at 20 HZ I am up a db and at 24 HZ down 1.

to the Op no bloated piano but w full weight and authority… I spend time in a nice reverberant space with several grands and a pipe organ with world class player ( like people who sit in at cathedrals in Euro during summer vacation time ) My reference is not dominated by a Fender jazz multitrack.

great question but don’t ignore the bass harmonics either… lots of energy up to and above 400 HZ 

have fun, enjoy your journey.

Also, the cited in room response is measured in my listening chair w RTA and calibrated microphone using Vandertones ( free download from Vandersteen website )

This is not new tech, 5 or 6 models over the years feature the 11 band EQ.

@millercarbon

Using an online tone generator I can hear and feel sound down to under 20hz in my listening area, how coherent that is is another matter. But looking at sound generation, no driver moves anywhere near the distances you describe in generating that, so I think you mean distance time delay, and not pressure level peaks. After all, a grand piano’s low A string is less than 8’ long, and to create that tone only requires it to travel a fraction of an inch.

As far as upper limits I will only consider third level harmonics, as that is what the 20khz is for, not actual notes while the energy above that is measurable, most of us cannot hear it, although I think many of us listen with our sense of touch as well, so I'm sure we can feel it.


To @everyoneelse;

It would seem treble is fair game as well. And I am interested in all aspects of musical sound generation/reproduction so to use an upright bass as an example, I want to hear the musicians fingers sliding up and down the strings while playing it; which can go very high up the frequency range, as well as the woods resonance in an acoustic version, and the lower harmonics that accompany the center of the note.

I guess I was assuming that we would be talking about sitting in your room listening measurements/experience and not a speaker in vitro, so no Anechoic chambers allowed. 

I just wonder what people find acceptable, since I know many people have very expensive, to me, systems that can barely manage 40hz, -0db down. 

Unfortunately Vandertones is an .exe, and so not available for the Mac. As I’ve mentioned, I use an online signal generation site. But have bought a decent portable recorder, and am now looking for opportunities to record pure notes of individual instruments, and I have a friend who is the department head in choral studies at a local university, so am going to see if I can wrangle some time in their concert hall to record the piano, which is already there. 
That will be an interesting database to make available to all who might want to add to, or use the file from. Perhaps there is already a start out there?

I'm pretty happy with 35hz of good bass. But for the few albums with very low bass information lower is better.