I think what you and others are failing to mention, is that the speaker in question really does have a lot to do with the final quality of the bass that you are going to be able to generate....regardless of the room. In your case Rodney, you happen to own some of the very best speakers for 'accurate' bass reproduction that I have heard....the Vivid Giya G1's. OTOH, I suspect if you owned a speaker ( numerous candidates can be inserted here) that is mediocre at best, or poor in their bass resolution, then I think all of the room fixes and bass correction would not help. Albeit, a great sub woofer can go a long way, problem is that most times a great subwoofer can only go so far...as everything upstream affects it and once again the room becomes a factor. ( Perhaps more so than a single speaker that can plumb the depths with resolution).
The Bass is the place!!
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I think what you and others are failing to mention, is that the speaker in question really does have a lot to do with the final quality of the bass that you are going to be able to generate....regardless of the room. In your case Rodney, you happen to own some of the very best speakers for 'accurate' bass reproduction that I have heard....the Vivid Giya G1's. OTOH, I suspect if you owned a speaker ( numerous candidates can be inserted here) that is mediocre at best, or poor in their bass resolution, then I think all of the room fixes and bass correction would not help. Albeit, a great sub woofer can go a long way, problem is that most times a great subwoofer can only go so far...as everything upstream affects it and once again the room becomes a factor. ( Perhaps more so than a single speaker that can plumb the depths with resolution).
I do not disagree. But, in my experience, better bass has become very much easier to achieve in the past couple of decades. Full range speakers are somewhat better, subwoofers are definitely better, more available and more easily integrated, and acoustic science and tools, like DSP EQ, are now easily available. Even DIY measurement capabilities in your room are widely available to better optimize the sound.
I think it is a serious error by many audiophiles to think that "it is all in the speaker", implying that all you have to do is buy a better speaker and your problems will be solved. That, as some of us already know, just simply does not work. Yes, it can be better in low frequency extension, bass distortion and dynamics. But, this notion cannot overcome the laws of physics and acoustics governing the evenness of bass in typical listening rooms. If anyone actually measures the bass response in their room, do not be surprised at 5, 10, 15 or more dB narrow band variations plus/minus, totally inconsistent with anechoically measured bass response. That type of response would be laughably incredulous in any other component in your system. But, hey, people still do it, oblivious to measurements, acoustics, physics or whatever.
Are the specs therefore wrong? No. Your room is. There are now ways, which were formerly quite elusive, to fix that and to get the most from your equipment, especially in the bass.
I agree 100% that the bass is the place. I have yet to hear a system regardless of price that sound as good in the bass department as a simple headphone. Considering the amount of investment made into my stereo system or some of the systems I have heard and am familiar with (400k+), this is almost a joke. Well the one system that I thought sounded pretty satisfying in the bass was the beolab90 but it was too short of an audition.
What's Best Forum is the place to get your bass right. :b ...Not the only place but certainly one of them.
I'm also thinking @ some members over the years who posted only very briefly, from Europe, with hi-fi stereo systems of the highest caliber. I bet the bass is good in their places.
There are also the ones who never posted, and yet their sound systems is even higher than the highest ones; from Europe, France, UK, Northern Europe, Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Italy, Rome, Spain, ...
Davey, in your own journey across the great divine; who's got the bass right @ his place, his place right with the bass?
I'm also thinking @ some members over the years who posted only very briefly, from Europe, with hi-fi stereo systems of the highest caliber. I bet the bass is good in their places.
There are also the ones who never posted, and yet their sound systems is even higher than the highest ones; from Europe, France, UK, Northern Europe, Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Italy, Rome, Spain, ...
Davey, in your own journey across the great divine; who's got the bass right @ his place, his place right with the bass?
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a few years back I spent 2 years investing in state of the art headphones.....at one point I had over $20k invested and they did sound very good. however; at their best they did not hold a candle to big boy bass in my system. sure; headphones can do detail, and give you information, but they lack the capability to do physical bass or effective bass decay. they cannot do a true ambient bed of sound....it's simply not physically possible.
I know there are software tricks which can pump 'space' into headphones but a true soundstage with proper scale and layering is not possible with headphones.
Bass from headphones can not shake your butt from your chair. ...Or lift the dress of your mistress.
Listen to your headphones while also playing the subwoofer.
That way you'll hear the details from the headphones and feel the music from the subwoofer.
+1.
I was into headphones as well a few years back...same problems However, I won't go as far as to say true ambient bed of sound with headphones is not possible...although I have never heard it and don't expect I will.
Bob, I can probably count on one hand the number of systems that I have heard that truly get the bass instruments/ambience 'close' to right. None....None were able to reproduce like a concert hall or the real instrument.
That is about 6,700 cubic feet. To have the room be considered acoustically "large," i.e not have room modes above 20 Hz, you would need a room that is 300,000 cubic feet! Your room's volume is just 2% of this.
What people think of home audio rooms is not of concern. Soundwaves are not dealing with people.
Well, I am sure every visitor praised your room before that too
. "Flat" is an objective term Mike. No room that I know measures "flat." In room response +-3 db would be considered excellent. If you have a measurement of the room without smoothing then we can see if your room is flat. Until then, I have my doubts .
To what do you attribute this phenomenon? (Other than simply that it is easier to hear close up.)
* * *
What I have learned from my speaker auditions is that to reproduce bass ideally, and to achieve all of the desired benefits in sound-staging and ambiance and scale, a system needs big drivers and height -- either woofer towers (e.g., Evolution Acoustics, Genesis, Pendragon) or big drivers mounted low and high (e.g., Arrakis). And if there are still undesirable low frequency room nodes then maybe even a JL Gotham or two sprinkled around to even things out. (I think the distributed bass concept makes sense to even out room nodes, but I do not think that three or four single-story subwoofers will achieve the ambiance and scale of the tall woofer towers.)
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That is about 6,700 cubic feet. To have the room be considered acoustically "large," i.e not have room modes above 20 Hz, you would need a room that is 300,000 cubic feet! Your room's volume is just 2% of this.
What people think of home audio rooms is not of concern. Soundwaves are not dealing with people.
Well, I am sure every visitor praised your room before that too
enjoy your doubts.
Threads like this are meant to investigate getting good base Mike. You bragged about your room, gave it objective metrics that are simply unheard of. Leaving that be makes people think they can buy expensive speakers and get there. It simply cannot be done. The room will not allow it. That is what I enjoy doing: point it out what the science of acoustics says in this domain. Hand waving is not my schtick but if it is yours, then fine.
I listen to huge number of rooms at shows. Vast majority of them have bass problems. And the exhibitor in private discussion often readily accepts this. Yet few audiophiles if any comment on bass issues. This is what was stated in OP. The fact that your proof points are "how many have come to hear your system" lends little credence to you having cheated the laws of physics.
Maybe you have an excellent response in your room in which case you should be proud to provide proper data to back it instead of such unkind quips.
Unfortunately Ron, I think in order to reproduce bass ideally, it takes a lot more than that! For example, all of the upstream gear has to be up to the task, plus at the very least, a room that is large enough to let the speakers 'breath' and drivers that are able to move enough air; while at the same time being able to stop their motion quickly enough to insure no 'overhang/ bloat'. Since I have heard so few systems that can portray extremely 'accurate' bass and with great resolution, there are probably other factors at work here as well.
Here is a computer simulation of an ideal speaker in the corner of the room. The circles are the ear position of the listeners in that row of seats. Colors represent amplitude at that frequency (shown on top). If we had flat response, the color would never change:
There is not a thing you can do in the speaker to change the above behavior. It is all a function of your room, its construction, its dimensions, etc. The problem is severe and remains to 100+ Hz.
The one on the right by the way is the optimal location of three subs to reduce but not remotely remove these variations. Equalization and bass traps were used to make those problems less severe.
There is not a thing you can do in the speaker to change the above behavior. It is all a function of your room, its construction, its dimensions, etc. The problem is severe and remains to 100+ Hz.
The one on the right by the way is the optimal location of three subs to reduce but not remotely remove these variations. Equalization and bass traps were used to make those problems less severe.
Oh, I agree! When referring to those big speaker systems I take it as a given that they are situated in large rooms. I think the point about having enough room to let the speakers breathe is correct (although I am not 100% sure what we are talking about when we say that).
So far the Pendragon is my favorite solution to moving air without overhang/bloat (eight 8" drivers driven by 1,000W Class AB in a 630 pound cabinet).
According to golden ratio room size calculators and the like ceiling height does not seem to factor significantly into the calculations. But every time I hear a system in a room with high ceilings I have that sense that the speakers are better able to "breathe."
Golden ratios are useless Ron. For one thing they were developed by assuming the sound producing element is in the corner of the room!!! Also, acoustic dimensions of a room are NOT the same as physical dimensions due to non-ideal properties of western home constructions.
The reason taller ceiling helps is because it increases the volume and pushes down the transition frequency lower, i.e. less modes. Volume is a bass person's best friend. This is why large concert halls have no bass problems. Nor do outside spaces.
you are welcome to come over and listen. bring your most demanding bass tracks. be critical.
but i'm not going down the measurement path with you. we all know how much you enjoy it.
which is not to say i'm afraid of measuring and making things even better. my speaker designer has asked me to do that but I've not got around to it yet. mostly the reason is that i'm so happy with what i'm hearing. and I spent the last year tuning my room and i'm in 'enjoy mode' right now and am in no hurry to get back into 'critical listening mode'. I posted 5 or 6 threads over the last year or so about my room tuning efforts. I put a huge amount of work into it.
I did not intend to be rude with my response and I apologize if it came across that way.
Just curious ... what music/recordings are people using to assess the quality of their bass?
Thanks,
Thanks,
Gary has two subwoofer columns; each with six drivers. He seems to have the goods; if I want to listen to say Pink Floyd - Wish you Were Here, I'd like to feel the bass impact in his room. Guy's need no headphones. :b
Oh, and I also bet that the bass is more than apt @ Mike's place...those speakers have also the goods, sub drivers low and high...and we know it's a good thing to have large woofers @ various height levels.
Steve, Rodney, Jack, Gary, ...all have the goods.
I don't know too many members here with Submersive subwoofers, but for stereo music on vinyl they aren't needed. ...Even from CDs.
I'll say this again; I know that some of you are into movies too, and with a nice big picture and sound to go with it...but hi-fi stereo music is truly your main first passion...and I say Chapeau to that!
I also want to say this; some films on Blu-ray have a very nice music score, and some of them @ the rolling end credits have some of the best couple music tunes that can compete with anything mastered recorded. I found that's where the best music sound quality is on Blu-ray films...@ the end during the credits. Some of my highest pleasurable music listening come from there. And the music genre can vary...from classical, new age, folk, to avant garde alternative and international world.
* I should start a thread just on that, but I already know that it'll be a lonely thread.
I'll stay with the cello, piano and violin for now. I love acoustic jazz, with that acoustic bass from the great jazz bass players.
No sweat, a pair of good loudspeakers can reproduce it with étincelles. ...That's French of course, for ... :b
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That's an excellent question Frank, and one that I'm also interested to learn from the masters.
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