SET amp owners thread

[microstrip]

(...) Separately, why would you be content with getting only 35Hz in room?

IMO we can't quantify bass in a room with a single figure - the subject is complex.

Jim Smith addresses the importance of stereo low bass in his book - soundstage depth and width, leading to more holographic imaging. But also says that numbers and measurements can be misleading, if not properly interpreted. The ears should be final judge.

 

[Atmasphere]

Ralph, when you say no SET can make full power of 20 Hz, does it matter if you’re only getting 35 Hz in room and you only need 10% of the power of the SET to get you to the volume you need?

In other words, are you describing a condition that is not often met under normal use?

This is a good question. The room response and speaker bandwidth have no bearing on this issue. Even if the speaker lacks the response, the voice coil is still loading the amp (the amp is still doing work). That is why I said in my last post that a non-inductive resistor would yield the same result. But if you are using the 16 Ohm tap and the speaker is efficient enough, this problem is reduced.

Diana Forte Amplifier Product Page – Aries Cerat

This amp will also do 20Hz-20Khz full power.

No, it won't. It will do that at a reduced level though. 'Full power' means 'just below clipping'. In this case, citation is required (photos or it didn't happen).

Because for realism 35 Hz is sufficient. It is more important to have sufficient, balanced bass, than deeper, boomy bass, depending on room, with as less a treatment as possible.

Sorry- if you want more 'realism' you have to provide the foundation. There's a lot of information below 35Hz.
If the ear senses a lack of bandwidth, its internal tone control will tilt the tonality. A lack of bass emphasizes the highs, too much bass and the highs get muddy. The trick to getting the bass right (to avoid boomy bass) is to use a Distributed Bass Array (DBA) so standing waves (which can cause boomy bass) are eliminated; no room treatment needed. You need multiple subs for that, asymmetrically placed about the room, unless your main speakers do the bottom octave, in which case you might only need two.

Agree. 35Hz of 'proper' bass is really good. ~35Hz is the lowest C# on a piano with only 4 notes below that. An organ, piano, harp (barely) and contrabass sarrusophone (barely) can get that low but no other acoustic instruments go that far. A double bass and a bass tuba can get to around 41Hz.

Bass drums are acoustic and go below 35Hz.Big bass drum whacks are kinda what made some of the early Living Stereo LPs worth so much money before they were reissued in the 1990s. Pipe organs are acoustic and can go to 16Hz (St. Saens Organ Symphony is a good example of this in action, also heard on The Planets by Holst). If a string bass has the low C option added to it, which is not that rare to see, its lowest note is 27.5Hz (I play bass FWIW...). And of course electronic music can go that low. Certain EMI recordings done in Kingsway Hall have subway rumble recorded in them due to the Piccadilly Line.

There are all kinds of signals below 35Hz. There can be subsonic signals in the recording such as those of Kingway Hall or it can be caused by playback (record warp). If you don't filter these things out of an SET you're missing a bet!

Most natural instruments don't go lower than around 40Hz. Only a couple of keys on a piano and pipe organ really. Still it also depends on how many dB down they are at 35Hz.

So it sounds like a different definition of 'HiFi' is being proposed. Obviously this is a rationalization and should be treated as such, which is to say its rubbish.

It’s better to have just 30hz - 35 Hz of the kind of more believable and authentic sounding bass that a really well implemented SET can do than 20 hz of a one note doof roof artificial kind of sounding bass that lesser amplification tends to deliver.

I find that a good SET within the context of acoustic instrument performance can display overall a more lifelike quality of bass over the more synthetic hifi’ish hyper-real bass that some amplification types typically render… everyone’s mileage on bass varies… I go cohesive lifelike quality over just an overt soul less disconnected quantity of bass when it comes to great music anytime.

Its possible to have realistic non-one-note-bass if you use a DBA to break up standing waves in the room. To this end, you can use a mono bass signal, since bass below about 80Hz in most rooms (unless enormous) is 100% reverberant. This means if you keep the subs running below that frequency you don't have to time align them and as long as they don't play above that frequency they won't attract attention to themselves.

And having heard them and liked them, there is also the Yamamura, Pnoe (single driver systems), altec 817, which are equally good and on some fronts better, and Leif's horn which is with woofers. There is no reason to have pursue subs - if the midbass horn rolls off at 75 - 80 hz, sure, if it goes to 35 or 40, not required.

The reason is stated above: standing waves. They can cause boominess or a bass suckout. My main speakers are flat to 20Hz and are 98dB and 16 Ohms. Without a pair of subs to break up standing waves, there's no bass at the listening position, even though three feet away there is. My room is nearly square. The DBA works a treat.

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

a friend here in Norway, who´s done lots of touring concert sound, studio work and also sub design work, says they measured bass respons from a bass drum placed on an elevated platform down to 5Hz!
the company he works for and OJAS/Devon Turnbull installed the system at Public Records in NY

The Nursery - Public Records

publicrecords.nyc

 

[LL21]

This is a good question. The room response and speaker bandwidth have no bearing on this issue. Even if the speaker lacks the response, the voice coil is still loading the amp (the amp is still doing work). That is why I said in my last post that a non-inductive resistor would yield the same result. But if you are using the 16 Ohm tap and the speaker is efficient enough, this problem is reduced.

No, it won't. It will do that at a reduced level though. 'Full power' means 'just below clipping'. In this case, citation is required (photos or it didn't happen).

Sorry- if you want more 'realism' you have to provide the foundation. There's a lot of information below 35Hz.
If the ear senses a lack of bandwidth, its internal tone control will tilt the tonality. A lack of bass emphasizes the highs, too much bass and the highs get muddy. The trick to getting the bass right (to avoid boomy bass) is to use a Distributed Bass Array (DBA) so standing waves (which can cause boomy bass) are eliminated; no room treatment needed. You need multiple subs for that, asymmetrically placed about the room, unless your main speakers do the bottom octave, in which case you might only need two.


Bass drums are acoustic and go below 35Hz.Big bass drum whacks are kinda what made some of the early Living Stereo LPs worth so much money before they were reissued in the 1990s. Pipe organs are acoustic and can go to 16Hz (St. Saens Organ Symphony is a good example of this in action, also heard on The Planets by Holst). If a string bass has the low C option added to it, which is not that rare to see, its lowest note is 27.5Hz (I play bass FWIW...). And of course electronic music can go that low. Certain EMI recordings done in Kingsway Hall have subway rumble recorded in them due to the Piccadilly Line.

There are all kinds of signals below 35Hz. There can be subsonic signals in the recording such as those of Kingway Hall or it can be caused by playback (record warp). If you don't filter these things out of an SET you're missing a bet!

So it sounds like a different definition of 'HiFi' is being proposed. Obviously this is a rationalization and should be treated as such, which is to say its rubbish.

Its possible to have realistic non-one-note-bass if you use a DBA to break up standing waves in the room. To this end, you can use a mono bass signal, since bass below about 80Hz in most rooms (unless enormous) is 100% reverberant. This means if you keep the subs running below that frequency you don't have to time align them and as long as they don't play above that frequency they won't attract attention to themselves.

The reason is stated above: standing waves. They can cause boominess or a bass suckout. My main speakers are flat to 20Hz and are 98dB and 16 Ohms. Without a pair of subs to break up standing waves, there's no bass at the listening position, even though three feet away there is. My room is nearly square. The DBA works a treat.

Fascinating. Thanks for these explanations. As Ron has alluded to just a few posts prior, I have always had a sub in my system, and continue to experience the benefits of it every day...and its not because I expect to hear a note or an instrument (though electronic and Hans Zimmer soundtracks certainly seem to test those lower limits)...its because I find the music more 'grounded', more 'rooted' with greater foundation. And that for me is a personal priority of what I look for in a system.

I would take that foundational bass over that last element of nuance or inflection in the upper mids or strings or vocals above and beyond what many good systems are already doing. This is a personal preference in the priorities of how I enjoy listening. Until about 10 years ago I would not have put seeking "all" the elements of details in music in even the top 3 priorities (which were beautiful tonal mids, deep propulsive upper bass and foundational lower bass) Over time, as those elements settled in, I found opportunities to build the system to capture more on the original source and play it through the system, lower the noise floor, enable more information to float through, to enable musical inflection, nuance...wonderful musical notes which appear in equal measure in classical music and very very complex electronic music where surprisingly subtle overlays, syncopated rhythms are often way off in the background unless you can pull them out cleanly, etc.

BTW, at around 70db avg testing playback, Absolute Sounds measured the room/system reasonably flat to 25hz and then down -5db at 20hz. I am no techie, but I trust Absolute Sounds to know how to set up our system to suit our tastes beautifully (and they did).

 

[tima]

Guess I missed bass drum in my list.

There are all kinds of signals below 35Hz. There can be subsonic signals in the recording such as those of Kingway Hall or it can be caused by playback (record warp).

While the importance of their reproduction may be unclear can you give some other specific examples besides Kingsway Hall.

If you don't filter these things out of an SET you're missing a bet!

Ralph you are diagnosed with SDS. SET Derangement Syndrome.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Sorry- if you want more 'realism' you have to provide the foundation. There's a lot of information below 35Hz.
If the ear senses a lack of bandwidth, its internal tone control will tilt the tonality. A lack of bass emphasizes the highs, too much bass and the highs get muddy.

There are all kinds of signals below 35Hz. There can be subsonic signals in the recording such as those of Kingway Hall or it can be caused by playback (record warp). If you don't filter these things out of an SET you're missing a bet!

So it sounds like a different definition of 'HiFi' is being proposed. Obviously this is a rationalization and should be treated as such, which is to say its rubbish.

+1

 

[Ron Resnick]

All speakers will still produce lower frequencies, just with reduced output.

Yes; maybe greatly reduced output.

What really matters is the quality of the bass—its speed, articulation, and detail. If those qualities aren’t there, how deep it goes is irrelevant.

I don't necessarily disagree personally. But this is just subjective preference.

Given those realities, the most sensible approach is to choose a speaker that suits your room. For most spaces, that’s typically in the 30–40Hz range.

I don't really agree. A speaker that can go down only to 35Hz or 40Hz is likely diminishing output as it gets down to that range. So as a practical matter you might not be getting full, flat output much below 50Hz or 60Hz.

 

[DasguteOhr]

It depends on how much membrane surface area is available whether the driver can deliver 35 Hz of sound pressure. Bass is always about moving air mass.

 

[morricab]

This is a good question. The room response and speaker bandwidth have no bearing on this issue. Even if the speaker lacks the response, the voice coil is still loading the amp (the amp is still doing work). That is why I said in my last post that a non-inductive resistor would yield the same result. But if you are using the 16 Ohm tap and the speaker is efficient enough, this problem is reduced.

No, it won't. It will do that at a reduced level though. 'Full power' means 'just below clipping'. In this case, citation is required (photos or it didn't happen).

Sorry- if you want more 'realism' you have to provide the foundation. There's a lot of information below 35Hz.
If the ear senses a lack of bandwidth, its internal tone control will tilt the tonality. A lack of bass emphasizes the highs, too much bass and the highs get muddy. The trick to getting the bass right (to avoid boomy bass) is to use a Distributed Bass Array (DBA) so standing waves (which can cause boomy bass) are eliminated; no room treatment needed. You need multiple subs for that, asymmetrically placed about the room, unless your main speakers do the bottom octave, in which case you might only need two.


Bass drums are acoustic and go below 35Hz.Big bass drum whacks are kinda what made some of the early Living Stereo LPs worth so much money before they were reissued in the 1990s. Pipe organs are acoustic and can go to 16Hz (St. Saens Organ Symphony is a good example of this in action, also heard on The Planets by Holst). If a string bass has the low C option added to it, which is not that rare to see, its lowest note is 27.5Hz (I play bass FWIW...). And of course electronic music can go that low. Certain EMI recordings done in Kingsway Hall have subway rumble recorded in them due to the Piccadilly Line.

There are all kinds of signals below 35Hz. There can be subsonic signals in the recording such as those of Kingway Hall or it can be caused by playback (record warp). If you don't filter these things out of an SET you're missing a bet!

So it sounds like a different definition of 'HiFi' is being proposed. Obviously this is a rationalization and should be treated as such, which is to say its rubbish.

Its possible to have realistic non-one-note-bass if you use a DBA to break up standing waves in the room. To this end, you can use a mono bass signal, since bass below about 80Hz in most rooms (unless enormous) is 100% reverberant. This means if you keep the subs running below that frequency you don't have to time align them and as long as they don't play above that frequency they won't attract attention to themselves.

The reason is stated above: standing waves. They can cause boominess or a bass suckout. My main speakers are flat to 20Hz and are 98dB and 16 Ohms. Without a pair of subs to break up standing waves, there's no bass at the listening position, even though three feet away there is. My room is nearly square. The DBA works a treat.

I don’t have independent measurements but what other manufacturer of SETs gives a full power bandwidth in the specs. Stavros is a serious engineer and wouldn’t add specs he can’t back up. You can believe it or be stuck in the past with your biases.

I am not making a new definition of realistic, you are by claiming that one has to have 20Hz reach in their system to get realistic sound. I have heard many more low frequency restricted systems that sounded more realistic with the vast majority of music than those with real 20Hz reach to know that your claim is the rubbish one and not mine.

Most speaker systems with such a reach have serious issues with the room as well as the speaker design itself, usually a multi-driver low sensitivity affair, or with poorly integrated subs. Anyone who has subs far away from their main speakers and doesn’t use DSP for digital time correction will have coherence issues and it will never sound right let alone realistic.

 

[Ron Resnick]

It depends on how much membrane surface area is available whether the driver can deliver 35 Hz of sound pressure. Bass is always about moving air mass.

That's exactly why I am such a big believer in driver surface area (woofage).

 

[bonzo75]

That's exactly why I am such a big believer in driver surface area (woofage).

Are you then going in for dual FLH of two 15 inch or 18 inch horn loaded woofers in each speaker, 100 db plus? Too early for you

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

my 4m long subhorns have an 18Sound 21"
from 65 and down
minus 3dB@23Hz
vented and "balanced" rearchambers makes them act like dipoles and generates
no room problems
actually designed by Rune at NNNN and more or less same specs as Devor23

 

[Kingrex]

Van Zyl has a BB18 sub. Call and ask him. Its pretty big. Something like 22x22x25 inch. Technically it only goes few hertz lower than the BB10. But it does load more air. Works the same. In a back corner of the room. I believe a horn loaded sub would be a perfect match for your Clarisys Speakers

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

Devor 23 - NNNN

nnnn.no

40x40x20 dual 15s

 

[DasguteOhr]

Ripol sub 2× 18" 15hz- 150hz adjustable 500watt rms amp size 48× 50× 58cm weight 140lbs

NEWS | MP&S Klangwelten

NEWS – Kundenfotos – Messefotos Variationen für Kunden Neue Subwoofer in Ripol-Konstruktion Die Subwoofer zeichnen sich durch einen extrem präzisen Klang aus, da sie durch die Dipolabstrahlcharakteristik nur wenige Schwingungsmoden im Hörraum anregen. Dadurch ist es möglich auch sehr tiefe...

mps-klangwelten.de

 

[Atmasphere]

While the importance of their reproduction may be unclear can you give some other specific examples besides Kingsway Hall.

I mentioned pipe organs, which predate electronics and so are acoustic (not that such should make any difference to an audio system). Not everything played on an audio system is music though- I remember one of those 'stereo demonstration' LPs London put out that had a steam locomotive on it.

How about we start with Verdi's Requiem recorded by RCA in the Soria box set (side note: Robert Soria worked for Angel records and is why their early editions have the wood dowel spine; he went to RCA and produced the Soria series box sets)? Side one track 2 (Dies Irae). That recording seems to be done without compression and can bring many systems to their respective knees in a matter of seconds if you try for any kind of realistic volume.

Black Sabbath's Paranoid is actually quite well recorded; find a copy on the original Vertigo black and white label. The opening cut drains most systems of their energy quite quickly.

ELP's first LP; play the cut 'Tank', if you have the original Pink Label Island LP, is pretty hard to play realistically unless you have good low end response.

When we recorded Canto General, we obtained the largest bass drum in the state at the time. It plays softly in some passages and is thunderous in others.

I first heard Paula Cole's 'Tiger' at CES. No way that recording will sound right if you can't present the bass right. The same is true of Sarah McLachlan's break out LP with the track 'Into the Fire'. I think the bass player detuned his E string down a bit. BTW Some basses have a 5th string for this purpose...

I can provide a much longer list if needed.

Getting these sorts of things right in most rooms requires a DBA, since standing waves can really mess things up. But when its all working, the result brings you closer to the music.

The speakers we use in the shop are honest to 36Hz. They are 94 dB and very fast. But the difference is really obvious if a sub is added to deal with information below 35Hz. People often ask 'Where's the sub?' but if the sub is actually there the sound is quite a bit different.

Now if you only play light jazz and such you might convince yourself that response below 35Hz isn't important. But if you have an original press of Take Five on Columbia, you'll find that to really experience that LP properly (due to the drum set), you do need that bottom octave.

 

[bonzo75]

How about we start with Verdi's Requiem recorded by RCA in the Soria box set (side note: Robert Soria worked for Angel records and is why their early editions have the wood dowel spine; he went to RCA and produced the Soria series box sets)? Side one track 2 (Dies Irae). That recording seems to be done without compression and can bring many systems to their respective knees in a matter of seconds if you try for any kind of realistic volume.

Black Sabbath's Paranoid is actually quite well recorded; find a copy on the original Vertigo black and white label. The opening cut drains most systems of their energy quite quickly.

The Black Sabbath Vertigo Swirl (and there are further details on small swirl, large swirl, big bear credits), I have best heard on Altec 817, both in person and on video. And I have heard it across many including other horns and cones such as Stenheim Alumine 2.

Not Verdi Requiem, but I use for audition chorals including Bach canatas and other operatic chorals, some of which are on my YT.

 

[Atmasphere]

The Black Sabbath Vertigo Swirl (and there are further details on small swirl, large swirl, big bear credits), I have best heard on Altec 817,

That Altec is an impressive speaker!

I've often wondered how it would sound with a beryllium diaphragm, which didn't exist when that speaker was made. I've heard comparisons of the original vs the beryllium on their 800Hz horn (damped) though.

 

[bonzo75]

That Altec is an impressive speaker!

I've often wondered how it would sound with a beryllium diaphragm, which didn't exist when that speaker was made. I've heard comparisons of the original vs the beryllium on their 800Hz horn (damped) though.

It should be easy to take an Altec 817 and swap with TAD or Radian. There are people who have done that, I have even heard one.

That said, I find both good, and a well done Altec is excellent, and if with all mods etc it is sounding great, I wouldn’t change it.

 

[Ligriv]

That Altec is an impressive speaker!

I've often wondered how it would sound with a beryllium diaphragm, which didn't exist when that speaker was made. I've heard comparisons of the original vs the beryllium on their 800Hz horn (damped) though.

I listened with my own ears to the same Altec 817 speakers that Kedar (bonzo75) is talking about, from Yanislav's house, and I can confirm what he said, they have a sublime sound.