Ron’s New System

[cjfrbw]

Isn’t ‘precision’ bass a bogey, or an artificial rendering of audiophile tastes and obsessions? Do fake or contrived precisions result in good listening results?

Listening spaces create beats that blend and disperse, cancel and reinforce, prominently in the lower frequencies. The primary notes will be modulated in 3D space by the beats. Stereo squishes any beats into the mains as a form of artificial sounding reverberant noise, or it creates ‘absolute’ bass as if it is devoid of an environment. Both tend to create forms of artificiality.

Bass in any given room will be a product of herbs and spices and to taste. Classical music lovers tend to like dry, tight bass that will give the tutti whomp while not obscuring the primaries or the imaging of the instruments. Rockers might prefer messy gut thumping bass.

So, a particular audiophile labors to ‘time align’ a perfect bass only to have the room demodulate it again with beats, or it stacks the 2D squished beats of the recording onto the beats of the room? Or, it’s impossible for the standard stereo pair to reproduce the bass environment of particular recordings because the venue is hammered into the stereo pair?

What exactly is the goal? A lab rendition of the mastering studio presentation? I can’t see that time alignment or any other audiophile conceit will not generate a mixed result. Bass in a large listening space will travel, backsplash, demodulate and blend.

So, bass for a given listening room will have to be adjusted to taste at the listening position, and aligned with the listening room, but it will never be ‘perfect’. ‘Imperfection’ itself might sound more ‘natural’. Does a perfect ‘tuning fork’ bass room sound good because it produces perfect tones without backsplashes or modulations? Dunno about that.

Musicians can be canny about ‘capturing the space’ when they perform, but that space will generally be flawed through two channel stereo and bass is no exception.

 

[PeterA]

Isn’t ‘precision’ bass a bogey, or an artificial rendering of audiophile tastes and obsessions? Do fake or contrived precisions result in good listening results?

Listening spaces create beats that blend and disperse, cancel and reinforce, prominently in the lower frequencies. The primary notes will be modulated in 3D space by the beats. Stereo squishes any beats into the mains as a form of artificial sounding reverberant noise, or it creates ‘absolute’ bass as if it is devoid of an environment. Both tend to create forms of artificiality.

Bass in any given room will be a product of herbs and spices and to taste. Classical music lovers tend to like dry, tight bass that will give the tutti whomp while not obscuring the primaries or the imaging of the instruments. Rockers might prefer messy gut thumping bass.

So, a particular audiophile labors to ‘time align’ a perfect bass only to have the room demodulate it again with beats, or it stacks the 2D squished beats of the recording onto the beats of the room? Or, it’s impossible for the standard stereo pair to reproduce the bass environment of particular recordings because the venue is hammered into the stereo pair?

What exactly is the goal? A lab rendition of the mastering studio presentation? I can’t see that time alignment or any other audiophile conceit will not generate a mixed result. Bass in a large listening space will travel, backsplash, demodulate and blend.

So, bass for a given listening room will have to be adjusted to taste at the listening position, and aligned with the listening room, but it will never be ‘perfect’. ‘Imperfection’ itself might sound more ‘natural’. Does a perfect ‘tuning fork’ bass room sound good because it produces perfect tones without backsplashes or modulations? Dunno about that.

Musicians can be canny about ‘capturing the space’ when they perform, but that space will generally be flawed through two channel stereo and bass is no exception.

This is a very interesting and refreshing post. Your questions are good and worth thinking about. I have found over my evolution in the hobby, that the quality of bass matters a lot to my overall enjoyment of the music in my collection.

Your post deserves its own new thread.

 

[Holmz]

Phil

Asking any single transducer to reproduce “what the microphone hears” is a tall order. When you divide the frequency range up into multiple drivers, with the lowest frequencies driven by a separate speaker (possible made by a different manufacturer) is even more difficult especially if they are in a different location from the mains. As has been discussed previously, if you are placing subs behind the mains, not using dsp to match the arrival time to the listener (by retarding the mains) leaves limited options. Without dsp, a good place to start is to aim for locating the sub so the voice coils of the drivers are in the same plane. Moving the sub front or back a bit can be helpful and for a variety of reasons, as you said, it might be that the best alignment of the subs might actually be to locate them a bit in front of the mains. (The problem with that is that it looks ridiculous and most audiophiles would never accept it.) But if you start off with the subs in, or reasonably close to the same plane as the low frequency diver of the mains, and with perhaps minimal use the phase control on the sub (if there is one), one might achieve an alignment that sounds good with minimal arrival time differences between the subs and mains. To reiterate, the best way to gain arrival time equivalence is to use dsp. Like many others, I’ve gone down that path for years as discussed elsewhere

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/dsp-one-persons-experience.520/

but ultimately abandoned it because, similar to your observations, there were trade-offs in the mids and highs I was not willing to accept, so back to analog I went.

Marty

If the group delay of the subs is high, then would they need to be in front of the main drivers?

 

[pjwd]

Isn’t ‘precision’ bass a bogey, or an artificial rendering of audiophile tastes and obsessions? Do fake or contrived precisions result in good listening results?

Listening spaces create beats that blend and disperse, cancel and reinforce, prominently in the lower frequencies. The primary notes will be modulated in 3D space by the beats. Stereo squishes any beats into the mains as a form of artificial sounding reverberant noise, or it creates ‘absolute’ bass as if it is devoid of an environment. Both tend to create forms of artificiality.

Bass in any given room will be a product of herbs and spices and to taste. Classical music lovers tend to like dry, tight bass that will give the tutti whomp while not obscuring the primaries or the imaging of the instruments. Rockers might prefer messy gut thumping bass.

So, a particular audiophile labors to ‘time align’ a perfect bass only to have the room demodulate it again with beats, or it stacks the 2D squished beats of the recording onto the beats of the room? Or, it’s impossible for the standard stereo pair to reproduce the bass environment of particular recordings because the venue is hammered into the stereo pair?

What exactly is the goal? A lab rendition of the mastering studio presentation? I can’t see that time alignment or any other audiophile conceit will not generate a mixed result. Bass in a large listening space will travel, backsplash, demodulate and blend.

So, bass for a given listening room will have to be adjusted to taste at the listening position, and aligned with the listening room, but it will never be ‘perfect’. ‘Imperfection’ itself might sound more ‘natural’. Does a perfect ‘tuning fork’ bass room sound good because it produces perfect tones without backsplashes or modulations? Dunno about that.

Musicians can be canny about ‘capturing the space’ when they perform, but that space will generally be flawed through two channel stereo and bass is no exception.

Thats a slightly depressing post !
If you have a well designed acoustic space, linear phase time aligned speakers and speakers and listner located in the optimum position you can get closer to the recorded sound.
Precision bass is a thing of beauty.

Of course folks achieve great sound by many other approaches ... each to their own ... however we now have relatively inexpensive equipment to do the above and I believe it will become more common.

 

[pjwd]

U

Phil

Asking any single transducer to reproduce “what the microphone hears” is a tall order. When you divide the frequency range up into multiple drivers, with the lowest frequencies driven by a separate speaker (possible made by a different manufacturer) is even more difficult especially if they are in a different location from the mains. As has been discussed previously, if you are placing subs behind the mains, not using dsp to match the arrival time to the listener (by retarding the mains) leaves limited options. Without dsp, a good place to start is to aim for locating the sub so the voice coils of the drivers are in the same plane. Moving the sub front or back a bit can be helpful and for a variety of reasons, as you said, it might be that the best alignment of the subs might actually be to locate them a bit in front of the mains. (The problem with that is that it looks ridiculous and most audiophiles would never accept it.) But if you start off with the subs in, or reasonably close to the same plane as the low frequency diver of the mains, and with perhaps minimal use the phase control on the sub (if there is one), one might achieve an alignment that sounds good with minimal arrival time differences between the subs and mains. To reiterate, the best way to gain arrival time equivalence is to use dsp. Like many others, I’ve gone down that path for years as discussed elsewhere

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/dsp-one-persons-experience.520/

but ultimately abandoned it because, similar to your observations, there were trade-offs in the mids and highs I was not willing to accept, so back to analog I went.

Marty

Ha 2010 I was messing around with deqx a bit before that ... kind of sobering that we have been plugging away at it for 20 years or so !
I have been using acourate with multi channel dac and amps in the last year or so and have been getting great results ... taking crossover components out of the chain just seems to allow more information to be presented and having each channel perfectly matched improves the soundstage ... as you would expect.
Very small adjustments in target curve can tune the mids to your liking .. tweeter is left alone apart from high pass filter
The main problem is infinite adjustability ... constraints are a handy.time saver
Maybe its time to go round again

Phil

 

[Al M.]

Bass in any given room will be a product of herbs and spices and to taste. Classical music lovers tend to like dry, tight bass that will give the tutti whomp while not obscuring the primaries or the imaging of the instruments. Rockers might prefer messy gut thumping bass.

No, great rhythm & timing is paramount in rock. "Messy" bass is anathema to that.

I am not sure what "dry, tight" bass in classical music is supposed to mean. Bass in the concert hall, from a good seat, is precise. Yet there is a saturation in the sound that does not allow for an impression of tight and dry, in my view.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Isn’t ‘precision’ bass a bogey, or an artificial rendering of audiophile tastes and obsessions? Do fake or contrived precisions result in good listening results?

the goal for me is not any particular flavor of bass in and of itself. it's realism. that i'm getting the feeling from the music that it's really happening. i'm captured. i want to hear what is in the music, in the recording, the feeling and pulse, not something warmed over, or stretched lean, to make it more palatable or logical or fit into a construct.

if the music is messy bass, fine. but sometimes bass heard 'live' is a mess that is really a mess and covers the musical truth. a proper recording can sometimes be much better, more clarity and musical flow, and the music better communicated. i don't want something live and wrong. i want the recording and reproduction to serve the musical intension. sometimes it works out like that......the advantage of the whole recording process.

so in my system i want "sneaky" bass. it does not impose itself over the music, or take things too far and blanket the musical flow, or get too lean and lose it's weight and tone and be something too objective and disconnected. but when it's suppose to be imposing.....then do it.

What exactly is the goal?

complimentary bass, of a piece with the music, with minimal technical limitations.

A lab rendition of the mastering studio presentation? I can’t see that time alignment or any other audiophile conceit will not generate a mixed result.

no rules. many legit roads to musical bass. and success not really about extension or any technical factor. but if a system can be optimal with time alignment then great. but time alignment is not the goal. the goal is sneaky bass that sneaks up on you and perfectly fits the music.

Bass in a large listening space will travel, backsplash, demodulate and blend.

complimentary bass, of a piece with the music, with minimal technical limitations.

So, bass for a given listening room will have to be adjusted to taste at the listening position, and aligned with the listening room, but it will never be ‘perfect’. ‘Imperfection’ itself might sound more ‘natural’. Does a perfect ‘tuning fork’ bass room sound good because it produces perfect tones without backsplashes or modulations? Dunno about that.

perfect bass is perfectly imperfect. it's never going to be exactly what happened. accuracy is down the list of essentials.

we want a version of perfect bass, that fit's into our system's capabilities.

 

[pjwd]

No, great rhythm & timing is paramount in rock. "Messy" bass is anathema to that.

I am not sure what "dry, tight" bass in classical music is supposed to mean. Bass in the concert hall, from a good seat, is precise. Yet there is a saturation in the sound that does not allow for an impression of tight and dry, in my view.

The ideal in concert hall is supposedly an 80ms delay in reflections followed by a reverberent tail and its the length of reverb time that defines the hall .. dry would be say 1.5 seconds and warm would be 2 seconds ( Boston) ... lots of variation in what folks like
Rock sounds great in a dry hall !

 

[tima]

I am not sure what "dry, tight" bass in classical music is supposed to mean. Bass in the concert hall, from a good seat, is precise. Yet there is a saturation in the sound that does not allow for an impression of tight and dry, in my view.

The 'tightness' of classical double-bass depends on how it is played, according to what the score requires. A hand-fingered pizzacato note is tighter (vibrates less) than a bowed note; eighth-notes are shorter duration than whole notes. The instrument has a large body whose interior and sounding board yield a nice woody resonance with decay if the performer does not stop strings or body vibrating with his hand.

we want a version of perfect bass, that fit's into our system's capabilities.

I suggest no meaning to the notion of perfect bass; each performance and performer for a particular hall or room is unique. As you suggest: realism.