Some time ago, I stated that there was no such thing as stereo bass, a
notion that I beleive is still somewhat debateable, depending on who you
ask.

I found this thread fro RAO of all places with participation from some very
knowledgable people, Arny, Tom and B.J. Feng and to a lesser degree, Howard
Ferstler, who appears to be getting spanked pretty hard here.

According to Dr. Feng and apparently JJ (who is referenced in the
conversation) stereo bass is a real thing for home audio.

Therefore I feel it neccessary to revise my position and just for kicks ask
if this issue is in fact resovled, or is it still debated?

True that the majority of recordings, particularly those for LP had bass
response summed to mon, but we have advance to CD now and things that
weren't possible for LP are now possible with CD.

Do most current recordings have bass response summed to mono, or are there
more recordings available with stereo bass.

The thread with the discussion I mentioned earlier is located at:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...J.+Feng&hl=en&

wrote:

Some time ago, I stated that there was no such thing as stereo bass, a
notion that I beleive is still somewhat debateable, depending on who you
ask.

According to Dr. Feng and apparently JJ (who is referenced in the
conversation) stereo bass is a real thing for home audio.

Therefore I feel it neccessary to revise my position and just for kicks ask
if this issue is in fact resovled, or is it still debated?

True that the majority of recordings, particularly those for LP had bass
response summed to mon, but we have advance to CD now and things that
weren't possible for LP are now possible with CD.

Do most current recordings have bass response summed to mono, or are there
more recordings available with stereo bass.

There have always been recordings available with stereo bass, at least
as long as stereo has been around. And decent stereo recording of an
orchestra will have the bass viols on the right. Or to take an example
from the pop world, 1975's "Wish You Were Here" by the Pink Floyd
contains a song "Welcome to the Machine" that has ping pong synth bass.

I don't think that there have ever been very many recordings that have
had their "bass response summed to mono", if by that phrase you mean
that the Left and Right channels are run through a summing amp & high
pass filter to combine everything below a certain frequency. (At the
other end, there are millions of recording that have had their high
frequecies summed to mono - it's called MP3, but I digress...)

It's long been convention to put bass dead center for pop recordings,
and part of this is due to the limitations of analog media, the LP in
particular. You can do things on a CD that you could never do on vinyl,
e.g. record 30 hz at O VU with left and right out of polarity. This
allows more options, for better or worse.

Directional cues can be difficult to discern at low frequencies,
especially if the size of the room is smaller than the wavelength of the
frequency in question. This is one reason why many recording
engineers don't bother with stereo bass. Another is the fact that bass
frequencies demand the most power to reproduce and panning the bass to
one side effectively reduces the max output by 3db. There are other
reasons, but probably the dominant one is "because that's the way we've
always done it."

//Walt

Do most current recordings have bass response summed to mono, or are
there more recordings available with stereo bass.

Question: If there were, would it make a difference under most end-user
conditions? It would seem that this is something so easily tested by
almost anyone as to be not very good fodder for debate.

I am looking for help he Typically ~500hz is taken as the threshold
for directional bass. Most of us have test discs of various natures
with tones well below this threshold. Mine goes to 15hz. Mine also has
right, left, and both tracks. It would seem pretty simple to pick a
frequency well within the flat region of your speaker response, say....
30hz or so (even 80hz if one does not have full-range speakers), and go
through those steps. If you can discern which speaker is playing
_every_ time with your back turned to them, then Stereo bass exists. If
not, then it is a subject for speculation on large stages, but within
your typical listening area, not. Anyone done this? is this a valid
test?

Bats use high audio frequencies for echo-location as air is a
light-density medium, and distances are relatively short. Submarines
use much lower frequencies, but still well 'up there' as water is a
medium density medium, and distances are considerably longer. Oil-field
echo-location uses VERY low frequencies as earth and stone are very
dense media and distances are long indeed. So, on a very large stage, I
can see bass frequencies giving critical spatial information. I am not
convinced that it would do so in the average room in the average house.


One more bit: Thunder at some distance propagates at very low
frequencies. Can you pick its direction just from the sound? Think
about it.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

wrote:
wrote in message ...
Do most current recordings have bass response summed to mono, or are
there more recordings available with stereo bass.

Question: If there were, would it make a difference under most end-user
conditions?

It might make more people want to have 2 separate subwoofers, one for each
side.

I would think that would be more useful for possibly taming room modes,
than for providing stereo bass in the subwoofer range...unless we're
talking about subwoofers putting out a lot of energy at or above 80 Hz.
If bass (as opposed to upper harmonics of a bass note) cannot be
localized below that, what sense does it make to talk about stereo
below that?




___
-S
"Excuse me? What solid proof do you have that I'm insane?" - soundhaspriority

so I thought it worthwhile to have some input from some pretty smart guys one of which doesn't post to
usent AFAIK anymore.


Couple of things:

"two separate subwoofers" = perhaps two full-range speakers.... Ancient
technology, that would be! But the common practice until 'boutique'
speakers designed more for looks than function came into vogue. And
users with flea-powered amps driving 'full-range single-driver'
speakers won't make it anyway. For that group, the subwoofer is a
necessity as well as being a tacit admission that full-range speakers
are not. To that end, just the other day, I visited a gentleman
oh-so-proud of his VERY expensive full-range speakers (Lowther
drivers??). Only they came with separate super-tweeters and a fairly
massive subwoofer. Oh well! I was pleasant and bit my tongue. Based on
this set-up, he could not test your concept.

The point would seem that if individuals were to invest in actual,
genuine, legitimate full-range speakers and sufficient power to drive
them, it would be quite easy to test your concept with a $10 test CD
right in their own home. Writing entirely for myself, I do have such
speakers (several sets) _and_ the power to drive them. So whether or
not stereo bass exists is moot. If it's there, my speakers will
reproduce it. If it is mixed down to mono, they will reproduce that as
well. When I get a chance at it (likely not before the weekend), I will
test the concept myself just for giggles on two different systems, one
SS (225wpc/rms) and one tube (75wpc/rms) and see what happens.

But you do raise interesting points. Easy to test under the correct
conditions, but nonetheless interesting.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

wrote in message
...
Some time ago, I stated that there was no such thing as stereo bass, a
notion that I beleive is still somewhat debateable, depending on who you
ask.

I found this thread fro RAO of all places with participation from some
very
knowledgable people, Arny, Tom and B.J. Feng and to a lesser degree,
Howard
Ferstler, who appears to be getting spanked pretty hard here.

According to Dr. Feng and apparently JJ (who is referenced in the
conversation) stereo bass is a real thing for home audio.

Therefore I feel it neccessary to revise my position and just for kicks
ask
if this issue is in fact resovled, or is it still debated?

True that the majority of recordings, particularly those for LP had bass
response summed to mon, but we have advance to CD now and things that
weren't possible for LP are now possible with CD.

Do most current recordings have bass response summed to mono, or are there
more recordings available with stereo bass.

The thread with the discussion I mentioned earlier is located at:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...J.+Feng&hl=en&

I have a pipe organ recording which was apparently made using
omnidirectional mikes spaced widely. Since pipe organs often have their
lowest pipes "in prospect", they are divided between the right and left
sides of the organ, alternating sides each half-step. The result is that C
is on the left side and C# is on the right side, D on the left, D# on the
right, etc. etc. Indeed, the signal is much stronger in one side than the
other. You can't hear which side the sound is coming from, since your ears
are too close together to provide directional cues, but that doesn't change
the fact that the signal is--from the standpoint of the
electronics--unequal.

Since low frequency performance is the major factor influencing the price of
a speaker, it pays to sum these signals into one reproducer. It's
analogous to a reversible freeway lane that switches direction at noon, so
the lane is always open to rush hour traffic. Saves real estate and money.

Norm Strong

wrote in message ...
Do most current recordings have bass response summed to mono, or are
there more recordings available with stereo bass.

The easy way to find out is to disconnect your speakers and put one of
them across the two "hot" terminals of left and right. If there's no deep
bass, then the bass has been summed to mono.

(IIRC this can be hazardous with some valve amplifiers, where you may blow
up the output transformers.)


Patrick Wallace
__________________________________________________ __________________________
--
NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth

"bear" wrote in message
...
wrote:

Some time ago, I stated that there was no such thing as stereo bass, a
notion that I beleive is still somewhat debateable, depending on who you
ask.

I found this thread fro RAO of all places with participation from some
very knowledgable people, Arny, Tom and B.J. Feng and to a lesser degree,
Howard Ferstler, who appears to be getting spanked pretty hard here.

According to Dr. Feng and apparently JJ (who is referenced in the
conversation) stereo bass is a real thing for home audio.

Therefore I feel it neccessary to revise my position and just for kicks
ask if this issue is in fact resovled, or is it still debated?

True that the majority of recordings, particularly those for LP had bass
response summed to mon, but we have advance to CD now and things that
weren't possible for LP are now possible with CD.

Do most current recordings have bass response summed to mono, or are
there more recordings available with stereo bass.

The thread with the discussion I mentioned earlier is located at:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...J.+Feng&hl=en&



Aside from the reasonably accepted fact that RAO is a cesspool...
regarding the topic itself:

imho, the notion that "bass" can't be discerned in terms of position at LF
came about because of the misunderstanding of published statements about
the "omnidirectional" nature of low frequencies, and their propagation.

While it is true that bass tends to propagate omnidirectionally from a
given source, and that most woofers have polar response at LF that is
pretty much omnidirectional, the ability to discern the source of LF sound
is not the same thing.

Pure single tone LF in an open field indeed might be very difficult to
discern position, but the case of two subs in a room is rather much a
different case - usually.


I think most people are operating on the information from THX that below 80
Hz a subwoofer tends to disappear. I'm sure that's not their phrasing but
the message is essentially the same.



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