Demise of bass quality in Main speakers

Disagree.  

There are a bunch of speakers with inadequate bass drivers.  This is driven by the desire of many people for smaller speakers which I think is really just trying to make the wife happy.    I reject these speakers without even listening to them.

There are still plenty of speakers with full range bass.  

Now many people think normal bass is deficient bass because clubs, cars, etc turn up bass so much they get used to more bass than is on the recording.  I'm ok with this, not criticizing, just think they should recognize what they like.

Jerry

+1 @carlsbad2

Ignoring the basic physics that a larger driver can go deeper, quality crisp bass slam and dynamics in bass reproduction has minimal to do with driver size. Rather it’s about the speed of the driver.

Until you foray into top quality build and more expensive speakers, the truth of the matter is that many larger size in- cabinet woofers have fully earned a bad reputation. They usually suck ….many of them sound boomy, muddy and out of control (that become untenable at louder volumes) with an obnoxious bass overhang that lingers so long as to blur most of the musical information up until the next bass note is struck. Ergo, listener fatigue.

sure …there is a limited cohort of bass headbangers out there with predominantly “party speakers” with this inflated boomy and muddy bass, with anything but a flat(ter) speaker response curve…. that seem to be either agnostic or immune to these warts.

The deeper bass can instead be dealt with by a quality build powered subwoofer.

The #1 benefit of adding a high quality subwoofer to your system is not how it further extends the bass response, but how it can dramatically improve the sound of your existing power amp and main speakers from the midrange on up.

That is by far the most compelling reason to add a sub to your high-end music system. Once your main speakers are freed from the burden of making deep bass, they will sound cleaner, faster and clearer, especially in the midrange and midbass.

They will also image way better because there will be far less air pressure and therefore resonance and vibration affecting their cabinet walls. And since the power required to make the deep bass is provided by the subwoofer’s built-in amplifier, your main power amp will be free from that burden and begin to sound like a much more powerful amplifier.

The one big problem with all of this is that you need a crossover to roll off the deep bass in your system and achieve all of these benefits.

The old adage of the bigger the woofer the more air it can move still holds true to a certain degree, but many other factors impact the quality and depth of the bass. I'm amazed at the bass speakers now have with much smaller woofers!

It’s way more practical and cost effective these days to just add powered subwoofers to extend bass when needed. Plus there are still plenty of bigger speakers with bigger bass drivers around when desired. Good ones will just cost a bit more which makes sense

Also having a separate cabinet that is also adjustable makes it much easier to get better bass in practice. Placement options for large heavy speakers in a single cabinet are often limited for most folks.