Anybody Knows How Bass is Supposed to Sound?

Really trying your best to smack the hornets nest with a baseball bat. So disappointed that Caesar didn't ask this question. I'll wait till the 7th inning stretch before I respond to this one. It will give me more time to get a higher rated "flame suit"..

NorthStar said:

[video]http://www.vevo.com/watch/leonard-cohen/Everybody-Knows/CAC231400059[/video]

Say you have full range loudspeakers with multiple large woofers, or restricted bass response loudspeakers with separate subwoofer(s).
How do you know how to balance the bass in your room with the other frequencies of the audio spectrum?
Do you use an audio test album/disc with a SPL meter, and your ears while listening to the acoustic bass accompanying Diana Krall or Patricia Barber?

For the purists, without subs; do you adjust the bass control behind your speakers, or on your pre/pro?
And, is there a bass control on your pre/pro? ...Or even behind your speakers?

For the non-purists, with subs; how do you feel about DSP subwoofers? Or would you rather have a DSP pre/pro to perform the task?

Brief, bass management by any method available to get the best sounding bass in all its referential purity. And how is it supposed to sound?
...Acoustically married/balanced in perfect synchronicity and phase to your room and ears and measurements.

Last, can you reproduce accurately ... say a drum kit? ...The lowest note of the piano? ...Of a synthesizer? ...Of an organ?

Click to expand...

last year I plugged up the whole ceiling bass trap in my room which had been causing a 10db suckout at 30hz. when I did this all my settings on my bass towers were radically wrong......so I had to start over. my speaker designer, who had identified the cause of the suckout during a visit, had given me provisional settings to try as a starting point. but quickly I could tell it was not close.

what I did was to use the passive main towers as my reference. I would play a series of cuts and adjust each parameter to where it would make the sound better, but not worse. I started with bass volume, then crossover, then 'Q', and then bass boost (EQ). I would turn off the bass tower amps, and listen, then turn them on and listen. if turning it on made the sound worse, I would reduce the setting, if it made it better I would increase it. since each setting was dynamic I had to cycle through each setting many times. it took 2 months of hours a day to reach the point where I got it sounding ideal.

it was certainly a low tech approach, but the results have been astonishing.

my speakers have theoretical capabilities which they seem to likely get close to of -3db at 7hz and -6db at 3hz......but as I have no way to measure that in room exactly where they are is a guess. but no doubt they are able to do anything on a recording with ease and have lots of headroom beyond musical needs. visitors give me feedback that the bass is right from their perspective. instruments such as a double bass, cello, piano, voice and drum kits sure sound more real to me than any reproduced music I have heard anywhere. the system easily re-creates any recorded sound without strain or stress.

I do have a number of recordings I do use to see where the bass is at. two of the best I use a lot are both Jeton direct to disc pressings; Midnight Serenade with Ray Brown and Laurindo Almeida, and St. Louis Blues from 'Come Friday', The Chris Barber Band. it's quite obvious as the bass gets better and better in terms of linearity and degrees of articulation.....with Ray Brown's double bass, and the trombone and big band in St. Louis Blues. both these cuts are very demanding of the deepest registers and micro dynamic shading.

I have lots of digital bass torture tracks that are also helpful.....but those 2 DTD pressings really tell me what I want to know.

Hi Bob, In my system the only thing I care about is does the bass no matter what instruments,does it or they energize me and my sound room. Now there are some variables that have to be correct to do that. Happily that takes place from a acoustic bass to a pipe organ,but that's the way I designed my system. One must have enough headroom,driver size to move enough air and a incredibly low noise floor.

Hornets nest indeed. This is one area where live needs to be the reference. Live instruments really fill up a room quickly and fully. It comes at you in pressure fronts.

When in HK last year, Keith and I arrived on the red eye. Not wanting to venture out into the city for a meal we ended up in our hotel's bar which was just a bit larger than my room. Music started playing and without turning around, I told Keith, "Please tell me that is a real upright bass, because if not I'm quitting this hobby". It was a real upright bass with no pick up. You have no idea how relieved I was that the sound was not coming out of the clubs PA system. I was also pretty pleased that the bass was very much similar to what I get at home. A few days later, Steve is in the house and he comments that my room sounds like a real jazz club. Nice to get an unsolicited pat on the back I guess going to all sorts of clubs through the years has really influenced the way I voice my system.

JackD201 said:

Hornets nest indeed. This is one area where live needs to be the reference. Live instruments really fill up a room quickly and fully. It comes at you in pressure fronts.

When in HK last year, Keith and I arrived on the red eye. Not wanting to venture out into the city for a meal we ended up in our hotel's bar which was just a bit larger than my room. Music started playing and without turning around, I told Keith, "Please tell me that is a real upright bass, because if not I'm quitting this hobby". It was a real upright bass with no pick up. You have no idea how relieved I was that the sound was not coming out of the clubs PA system. I was also pretty pleased that the bass was very much similar to what I get at home. A few days later, Steve is in the house and he comments that my room sounds like a real jazz club. Nice to get an unsolicited pat on the back I guess going to all sorts of clubs through the years has really influenced the way I voice my system.

Click to expand...

Best jazz club I've ever been in

I use 3 methods to control bass .. full range speakers

Speaker and listening chair positioning (chair position the most important , to not sit in a node or suckout)
room treatment , multiple bass trapping
DIRAC dsp to clean it all up

I finally use my ears to micro tweak the bass to my taste .. I like it deep , powerful and tight with texture

You never want flat bass at listening position..it will sound bass light.. you need a lift running from 150hz downwards , ie a "house curve" , which is highly subjective
Ideally I want my bass to have a high impact initial slam and a dry roll off .. no boominess or long lingering bass notes which masks just about everything else.

(I am in the process of manufacturing 12 6ft by 16" tube traps , to replace my velocity based flat panels with pressure based bass absorption , the tubes will also give me selectively tuneable absorption or dispersion as 1/2 the diameter has a reflective layer and depending on how they are oriented , you can tune them. So you can fix mid/hf reflections as well as resonances)

No i dont know i always ask my dealer
No really i think its the most difficult thing to get right but the ears have the Final saying .
And between human beings standard s differ a lot.

Like Rodney, I use Dirac. But as I have learned, there is flat, flat and then flat (to be more accurate, that should actually read: "even response" vs flat since I use a slightly downward tilting curve starting a 20HZ toward 100HZ). Some background on that statement. I have four 18 inch subs in the front two corners of my room (2 in each) and two different subs (same manufacturer) in the rear of my room. With this combination, I have to adjust delays and well as trims in the rear subs - and since there are a bazillion combinations of those two settings, there are a bazillion different sounds of the pre-corrected room response -- and believe or not, there are different sounds in the Dirac corrected response ---- even though the various Dirac corrected responses are virtually identical.

So my answer would be measurements, correction, listen ---- followed by more measurements correction, listen, followed by more measurements, correction, listen. And this continues until the sound is as close to live as I can get it. Even though I use our room for both music and movies, music is what i use to evaluate the response. Deep male vocals, stand up bass, kick drum, etc.

And, I have a bit of what I call "Marty's Disease". When he used his TacT to correct his system (at least in his home in Dallas), when he would hear something that sounded amiss, he would tweak his target curve to try and adjust for it. I end up doing the same. I might listen to many kinds of music and everything sounds exactly correct in the bass, and then all of a sudden, I hear something that sounds wrong, I try to find out how to fix it. The only way to determine if what I heard was actually wrong or was in the recording is with ear phones, and that is what I do.

And the cycle continues. This hobby is PERFECT for those of use who are OCD!!

Common disease .. you cant eq and set target curves on a recording by recording basis..it will drive you dilly.
Problem is , its so easy to fiddle that you get sucked in
One great thing however is that the tweaking costs you nothing

I did a swarm of 4 SVS sb13 subs to smooth the room , used both DIRAC and a miniDSP 4x10 to try integrate them all .. I eventually got it right , it did smooth the entire room , but my Giyas had better bass at listening position without subs so I sold em on.. so I kinda sympathize with your 6 mixed model sub setup with a gazillion combinations

Hi

Bass is one of those areas for which manya audiophiles profess a certain condescension. THose who seek the ultimate in bass are seen by many as "bassheads" and from that point not worthy to voice their opinions. The audiophile saying is that the "midrange" is where most of the music is .. true to a point , if the bass is wrong EVERYTHING will sound wrong even if the music doesn't seem to have any bass.. For illustration listen to a chamber piece on a full range system then on a limited range ( i-e weak bass system).
The reality is that in modern days systems and speakers the midrange is dealt with. There are of course as in anything different level of adequacy. Some are better objectively and subjectively than others but for the vast majority of what we would term "audiophile" speakers, the midrange is adequate.. You choose most any speaker deems of the High ENd moniker (not high price mind you) and the midrange will be at least adequate... Bass however is another cup of tea. It is all over the place and I would venture to say that a good number audiophiles have absolutely no idea of what it should sound like. I have heard too many systems where the bass is all over the place and so weak as to wonder if that person has ever gone to any live music presentation... And so have many here. The person will proudly claim that his system midrange is sublime but those who believe in trying to recreate what is heard in live setting s will be left shaking their heads ... To repeat : If the bass is wrong ...

The real problem is that getting bass right in any room is not easy. The smaller the room the more pronounce the problems are... The larger the room same . Actually from 500 Hz on down, the room dominates what we hear. Getting the bass from the speakers to attain our ears in the cleanest fashion is not an easy task. It requires often the use of things that some audiophiles are staunchly opposed to ... did I mention DSP? noooooooo ... Not that it cannot be achieved by more non-dsp means ... it does take more time and more effort and more treatments and perhaps more luck. On top of that that level of distortion in the bass affect the midrange in severe ways. We can thus understand an audiophile preferring weak bass to that kind of all over the place response .. when you can have a band of frequencies 20 dB higher than the rest followed by another band 30 dB down!! Nowhere but in the bass would you find such (audible) swings.
I have much more to say about this but have to work. I would say however that a good pair of cans help. THey can't give you the impact and tactile pleasure of great bass that you would get from a well set-up speaker system but they will tell yo how wrong the bass corrupted by your room can be ... More later ...
Great thread!!

Lowest pitch freq of :

64 foot pipe organ 8 hz .
4 string basguitar 42 hz
5 string 30 hz
contrabas 41
piano 27 hz
But good bass isnt just the 20 hz 60 hz region ., most 2 ways already start to fall of around 60 80 hz , its also the midrange support good woofers give.
2 way systems are the easy way out , less likely to develop problems with room modes , and cheaper .

Ps dont shoot me please

In my experience,the lower the noise floor the easier bass integrates in to the system on a whole. As the lower frequencies clean up,it will effect the midrange and high frequencies,adding much more realism. There is nothing like the power and weight that good bass can add to a system.not to mention the difference in the soundstage. I tend to focus heavily on the bass now as the faster,more articulate,and resolute it becomes,the more realistic everything else is. Like everything else there are varying degrees,especially as you get close to optimum characteristics. Example is you might "feel" the bass on a pipe organ,but there is a big difference between a vibration and the power felt when your whole listening area is energised and your residence shakes. As the bass improves,everything tends to be faster,more dynamic,and musical. Just like listening for more clarity in large chorale pieces,I tend to listen for the quality and clarity of the bass in every orchestral piece. Bass is the foundation for great exciting music, If you have that everything tends to follow,because it is the hardest to achieve. YMMV

RogerD said:

In my experience,the lower the noise floor the easier bass integrates in to the system on a whole. As the lower frequencies clean up,it will effect the midrange and high frequencies,adding much more realism. There is nothing like the power and weight that good bass can add to a system.not to mention the difference in the soundstage. I tend to focus heavily on the bass now as the faster,more articulate,and resolute it becomes,the more realistic everything else is. Like everything else there are varying degrees,especially as you get close to optimum characteristics. Example is you might "feel" the bass on a pipe organ,but there is a big difference between a vibration and the power felt when your whole listening area is energised and your residence shakes. As the bass improves,everything tends to be faster,more dynamic,and musical. Just like listening for more clarity in large chorale pieces,I tend to listen for the quality of the bass in every orchestral piece. Bass is the foundation for great exciting music, If you have that everything tends to follow,because it is the hardest to achieve. YMMV

Click to expand...

I too listen to bass on orchestral, and bass is supposed to exist in space. The tympani or bass drum strike might be down in front of you, but the sound comes from the whole stage towards you and is everywhere. I find most speakers do a point strike - some from the woofer down below, or from part of a column. The best examples of bass coming from a whole plane, top to bottom, side to side, with decay has been with the restored Apogees. With pile driver kick drums.

Best example of low noise and bass capability of woofers enhancing the whole system, including the bloom of string instruments, has been Mike Lavigne's system, so people should pay careful attention to what he wrote up their though almost no one else will be able to go implement it

And the best slam bam bass and a more practical way of using woofers to crossover from speakers can be learned by following Marty.

I m sure , mikes system sounds fabulous , but given the chance and money , i think i can improve on that , will i ever get the chance /finance hmm not sure .
I t ll also be a 2 tower design with a lot membrane surface , HPL material , hexacone woofers but passive , but you need a special big room to get the most out of it , otherwise it ll be like cruising in first gear with a ferrari,
Making such a system automatically raises the eff , if one uses clever filtering ,so you could potentially skip on power

Every week or 2 I use the CARA test disc and run closely spaced tones from 20 - 200hz..at pretty high volumes and every time I do it , there is something else in the room that resonates merrily along .. find these and damp them.. you have no idea of how this "cleans up" the bass
You will also be surprised at exactly whats buzzing , resonating or rattling ...took me 1/2 an hour to track down a shade of one of my spotlights that was buzzing....

How do you know how to balance the bass in your room with the other frequencies of the audio spectrum?

Click to expand...

Very simple just put on a pink noise source, use an RTA and set your curve. You can also use narrow band test frequencies and an SPL meter. You verify by ear on your favorite bass sources and tweak accordingly.

Rob

I know i had to retighten my sliding doors to keep them from rattling , double glass /thick alu frame .

As soon as i get my clio working again ( it needs to be send to italy ) im gonna make individual spl measurements at certain constant freqs , 40 hz 30 hz 25 20 to see what the roll off is
But from logchirp sweeps i did before , it looks like i have about a 3 db roll off at 20 hz .
20 hz is very good audible in my system without the use of subs

We can not separate bass performance from the overall system balance and characteristics. Each of us will address the bass performance of his favorite system, of his dream system or of his best friend system, and we will find they are all technically very different ...

In my limited experience digital needs a different type of bass than vinyl. It is mostly a feeling, I have not data enough to support it.