I have heard many speakers that had peaky or ill controlled bass that were
considered more satisfying than similar size speakers with tighter bass,
even though tight bass is more technically correct. But I have almost no
experience of listening to larger systems with critically damped woofers
capable of moving far larger amounts of air than the typical speakers or
subwoofer. I have always assumed that such a system would satisfy both
requirements - "realistic and satisfying" and "tight". Who can tell me
their experience? As I have pondered building a subwoofer it would be
helpful to have an good idea how crazy one has to get to be sure of bass
response that satisfies both criteria.
Wylie Williams

"Wylie Williams" wrote in message


I have heard many speakers that had peaky or ill controlled bass that
were considered more satisfying than similar size speakers with
tighter bass, even though tight bass is more technically correct.

The role of the original recording in situations like this has to be
carefully considered. A recording might have tight bass or loose bass or
some other kind of bass.

I think that the role of an ideal accurate subwoofer is not to change all
recordings so that they have tight bass, but to reproduce the bass as it was
recorded. However, accurate reproduction of bass notes may not be satisfying
to a particular listener. The listener may wish to hear some other kind of
bass notes regardless of what sort of music the recording contains.

This begs the question as to how one determines what kind of bass a
recording has and how that relates to the sound of the original performance.
These questions become more challenging when we realize that many recordings
are not the result of a single musical performance, but are either
composites or synthesized or processed.

For example, I have a recording of a piano-organ duet involving an organ
with a 16' rank. In the recording, the lowest octave organ notes vary
strongly in intensity from note to note and in repeatable ways.

This begs the question as to how I know that these variations in intensity
are in the recording. I know this these notes vary in intensity because I
have measured them in the recording. I detected this problem by listening
with headphones that are known to have relatively smooth response in the
bass range.

It turns out that the particular organ installation is not very good, the
room it's in has horrific acoustics (especially when not packed with
people), so the notes in question also vary strongly in intensity at the
live venue. The recording is fairly accurate representation of the live
performance.

But, for people who are familiar with how a good organ is supposed to sound,
these bass notes sound very wrong and even irritating. The rest of the organ
sounds at least a little better. If reproduced poorly the varying notes
might not be so noticeable. Reproduced well, the varying notes are more
irritating and less satisfying.

I think that the criteria of "satisfying" is far to ill-defined to act on in
a permanent way without reference to other information. There can be just to
many ill-defined variables.

But I have almost no experience of listening to larger systems with
critically damped woofers capable of moving far larger amounts of air
than the typical speakers or subwoofer.

I think we should look at the performance of any speaker in terms of the
response at the listener's ear. "Critically-damped" is a technical term with
a precise meaning. In the context of a subjective perception, it is
difficult or impossible to know whether or not that technical meaning is
being invoked. Subwoofers in particular are often profoundly effected by the
acoustical properties of the listening room. A speaker can be
critically-damped in its enclosure, but this guarantees little about what
the sound will be like at the listener's ear.

I have always assumed that
such a system would satisfy both requirements - "realistic and
satisfying" and "tight".

It seems unlikely that a subwoofer with poor performance as a component will
fortuitously find itself positioned in a room in such a way that its
deficiencies would be overcome. Far more likely, a subwoofer with good
performance as a component will unfortunately find itself positioned in a
room in such a way that its performance vastly understates its potential.

Who can tell me their experience?

IME there is something very special and wonderful about a very good
recording of bass instruments and the undertones of more ordinary
instruments, played back through an accurate reproducer of bass and all
other audible sounds.

However, this is the imperfect real world, and possession and use of a
system that is an accurate reproducer often serves to better portray the
fact that many recordings are well, troubled. Sometimes the recordings are
troubled because the original musical source is troubled, and sometimes the
troubles seem to be imposed during production. Some of these troubles are
environmental, as the ability to reproduce deep bass adds critical
requirements for acoustic isolation of vinyl playback and even sometimes
tubed amplification equipment.

As I
have pondered building a subwoofer it would be helpful to have an
good idea how crazy one has to get to be sure of bass response that
satisfies both criteria.

It turns out that one doesn't need to bother with subwoofers in order to
experience the joys of bass reproduced well and in context if one can adapt
to headphone listening. IME the following relatively inexpensive headphones
provide a worthwhile initiation into the experience of listening to low bass
sounds reproduced reasonably well:

Sony EX-70 ear buds
Sony MDR 7506 headphones
Sennheiser HD-580 headphones

I suspect that Etymotic ER-4 and ER-6 ear buds are at least as good as any
of these. Likewise with the Shure E2 and E5 personal hearing devices.

Of course, being headphones, YMMV.

"Wylie Williams" wrote in message

I have heard many speakers that had peaky or ill controlled bass that
were considered more satisfying than similar size speakers with
tighter bass, even though tight bass is more technically correct.

"Tight bass" has no technical meaning. Most people call bass "tight" when its
overdamped and/or under-developed. At worst it's just another word no light or
no-bass.

If you want a specification as to what would be necessary to reproduce bass
content with every modern recording at full level with no compression, no
dynamic power compression and no bandwidth limitations I'd say that Holman's
recommendation of 122 dB SPL might cover all the bases.

So @ 2 meters that means 116 dB 12 to 62 Hz (the bandwidth takes in account the
bandwidth of modern programs (www.svsubwoofers.com)) means that you should be
able to replay most avaiable recordings at a fully realistic level.

Check out the June 1999 Sound & Vision for pictures of a system that meets this
criteria, I personally know (and have recorded performance) of 3 systems that
meet this criterion in the US.