HZ.....How low for full range music???

Most people will probably say "20 Hz.", but it is arguably neither necessary nor desirable to have a speaker that is flat all the way down to 20 Hz.

One reason is that most rooms amplify very low frequency signals (the phenomenon is called "room gain"), and having a speaker that starts to run out of gas at, say, 30 Hz., will not matter too much in many cases, as the room can fill the last octave back in to a large extent.

In addition, a speaker that has real 20 Hz. performance is going to be hard to place properly in many (if not most) circumstances, and can wind up giving peaky, uneven bass as a result (that will drive you nuts over time).

Finally, and there are a lot of people who will disagree with this (e.g., subwoofer manufacturers), much of the information on a recording taking place at really low frequencies is, to my ears, amusical junk, like subways going under the studio and mike stand bumps, that I can live without. Then again, if you find that such noises help make the recording sound more "live" or if you are a pipe organ music fan, you'll want deep bass capability in your system.

I would buy a Radio Shack meter* and get a test CD with bass warble tracks (Stereophile Test CD 3, for example) to measure the bass performance with your current speakers. You may already have plenty of low bass.

* Make sure you use the correction chart to correct for the Radio Shack meter calibration errors.

Getting bass down low with honest power is not easy. You have to deal with the laws of physics. A rough guess would be that 90% of speakers claiming bass to 30hz are putting out too little to seem realistic imo. You need to be able to move alot of air and drivers that can handle it. Without a sub you're looking at speakers with large cabinets.

There's plenty out there but don't believe the advertising claims of most speaker manufacturers because like I said most speakers I've heard claiming bass to 30hz and lower simply have no power down low to speak of. I actually run a sub with speakers that have power into the twenties and run them full range with a sub. The sub is crossed over at 45hz and it amazes me how much that sub is working. I will feel the passive radiator to see how much it's working and it's quite significant. I listen mostly to jazz and pop and that woofer has a pretty fair amount of work to do. Get as much bass power as you can if you want real bass.

The other downside to bass is you will have to deal with large cabinets as no mini monitors can do it, period. If your friend can afford the space and money then find some speakers that claim a minimum of 30hz or you'll end up needing a sub.

The room gain the above poster speaks of will vary depending on the dimensions of the room and the proximity of the speakers to the walls. This room gain is almost always added to manufacturers frequency response claims and is therefore little more than useless if you're looking for an accurate and consistent reference.

I have an elaborate array of subwoofers, and for some music, organ in particular, they have plenty to do. But, my main speakers are Maggie MG1.6, and they fall off fast at 40 Hz. However, the Maggies, when used without subwoofer help, (but with a 600 watt amp) actually sound as if they have "good bass" for most music. I have heard it said that their SMOOTH frequency response is the reason.

My experience indicates that the quality of the bass response is more important than how low it goes. Measures that a speaker designer can use to extend LF response can achieve that goal, but often results in "boomy" bass that sounds impressive in the showroom, but becomes annoying at home.

GREAT INFORMATION!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS A BUNCH

It is awfully hard to find "full range" speakers that go down to
20Hz and the ones that do, are usually very expensive. I agree with
Eldartford, I would rather have limited range speakers than speakers that do
bass badly -- and, to my ears, there are many, many speakers that do bass
badly. If you are listening to rock music, you probably want some bass slam.
Getting that slam will be a function of two things; Speakers capable of that
bass and amplifiers that can control the speakers. Most likely, you're talking
about solid state amplifier and you'll need a fair amount of power. I would
call any speaker that can give a relatively flat response down to the mid
twenties, "full range."

As far as room response, you can go to various web-sites and feed the
dimensions of your room into a simulator and it will predict the frequency
response of your room. Having fed lots and lots of dimensions into these
simulators, it seems to me that most rooms have large peaks and valleys
between 35Hz and 100Hz.

This is why many acoustical consultants recommend using a sub-woofer with
a parametic equalizer -- to smooth out the bass response in the room.