If I am not listening to movies, how low do I really have to go???

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
The truth is, in a lot of modern music, electronic in particular, we see tons of information below 35 hz. Sometimes, lots of it, and more as time goes on.
.

Gee Dr. Dyna, do you mean some of us have been trying to reproduce electronic music that is not faithful to the "original"?

Taking your point just a little bit more seriously, some of those "compositions" are done for their visual appearance on a scope or software or for their conceptual role. Or for how they sounded on the lousy speakers on the composer's board and are only tenuously related to sound feasting. Curiously, I'd criticize Bach inversion variations that way too as being conceptual variations, not aural variations.

Just because somebody thought they'd program some 18 Hz square-waves (needing 1.8 Hz speakers to "sound" "right"), doesn't make it music anybody else needs to reproduce for pleasure.

And I do mean "sound" "right".

Ben
OK, I admit it, I love to play Vangelis' "Mythodea" which includes a rocketship take-off. And Danley's fireworks and railroad recordings. Nothing more impressive in my collection than railroad boxcars rolling over joints in rails, recorded in the 60s. Talk about loud impact sounds!!!
 
Last edited:
Here is a not-to-well-developed thought.

To my ear only (but I've heard others say the same thing) even though my hearing now at my age, dies at 15khz, I can still hear "airiness" if the tweeters are delivering above 15khz.

SO even though in all my music, 99% only goes down to 40hz (for example), would my lower end just sound better, stronger, tighter....whatever, if my system could reproduce down to 20hz?

Like I said, just a thought.
 
Just because somebody thought they'd program some 18 Hz square-waves (needing 1.8 Hz speakers to "sound" "right"), doesn't make it music anybody else needs to reproduce for pleasure.

So, your defense is, it's not really music so it doesn't count. While I understand that might be your, or some others opinion, we should be careful not to assume that it's everyone's opinion, to the point where we exclaim universally that musical coverage below 35 hz isn't mandatory.


OK, I admit it, I love to play Vangelis' "Mythodea" which includes a rocketship take-off. And Danley's fireworks and railroad recordings. Nothing more impressive in my collection than railroad boxcars rolling over joints in rails, recorded in the 60s. Talk about loud impact sounds!!!

Agreed, that stuff is great. Speaking of the 60's and 70's, Pink Floyd, as well as some of the newer Roger Waters stuff has got great low frequency content. Take Pink Floyd's "Time" for example, playing this track on a system that rolls off in the 30's versus playing on a system that rolls off at 20 is a magnificent difference.

If I can zip back to the topic of electronic music for a moment, while we're on about the 60's and 70's, even Jim Morrison saw it coming:

Jim Morrison Prophecy - YouTube

:cool:
 
SO even though in all my music, 99% only goes down to 40hz (for example), would my lower end just sound better, stronger, tighter....whatever, if my system could reproduce down to 20hz?

This is just my opinion, so, grain of salt time. As I've upgraded subwoofers over the years quite a few times, I've noticed that, even though my old one "covered" fairly well, each time I build a new set that go lower or play louder, I seem to get more and more out of recordings that up until that point I had thought I was hearing all of.
 
...SO even though in all my music, 99% only goes down to 40hz (for example), would my lower end just sound better, stronger, tighter....whatever, if my system could reproduce down to 20hz?

Like I said, just a thought.
I guess it depends on different things. Everything else equal, lower bass reproduction capacity would be preferable. But sometimes it's a good compromise to sacrifice some of the deepest bass.

I experimented with dual 12" low Qts pro-woofers per side. Hardly anything below 50Hz, but what a tight and hardhitting midbass. Perfect for rock-material.

Personally I could live without the sub-30Hz range, but I would be nice to have it all. I could personally not live with a soft and blured midbass, even if I had strong 20Hz vibes from the system.
 
Personally I could live without the sub-30Hz range, but I would be nice to have it all. I could personally not live with a soft and blurred midbass, even if I had strong 20Hz vibes from the system.

I am in total agreement there R. I was a drummer and bass player when I was young and if that region is muddy, I am not happy.

This will be the first time I've had to deal with room issues as well. I am looking forward to hearing the affect panels have on the accoustics.
 
An f3 at 40 Hz is quite reasonable. However, I prefer to have an f3 of around 30 Hz to better reproduce the full low-frequency sound spectrum that is contained in many recordings. I believe that the lowest note on a grand piano is at approximately 30 Hz, so an f3 at about that frequency would be attenuating the response somewhat. A grand piano is a relatively common instrument, so being able to reproduce its frequency spectrum faithfully seems to be a reasonable requirement for high-fidelity sound reproduction.

Ideally, I'd like to see an f3 of around 20 Hz or so in any high-fidelity speaker system. This generally necessitates the use of a subwoofer.


I analyzed most of my music before deciding on the bass solution, and I discovered that my best piano recordings had output down to 25hz, which is why that was my goal. Most of the electronic music has output under 30hz, but it's usually optimized for output down to 40 or maybe 30hz, what's below 30 is usually horribly bad because the artist or studio probably do not have proper reproduction of those low notes.

So I would actually suggest using a 25-30hz hp filter for most electronic music, and no filter for "proper" music. :p
 
KaffiMann raises a good point.... in support of Rojoh and DJN and me:

if you want to reproduce a piano well (OK... not really possible, but let's say you want to), somehow having your speakers play to 25 Hz for a once-a-century vibration (which your ears add anyway) is the least of your design purposes.

About DrDyna adding better bass, we all have similar experiences. Lots of non-acoustical reasons, of course. But often it is because the "before" woofer wasn't actually producing the bass we imagined it was. Certainly my experience. TODAY when we say "25 Hz, -6dB" we mean it - not like manufacturer's (or DIYer's) unverified claims of yesteryear.

Ben
 
Last edited:
KaffiMann raises a good point.... in support of Rojoh and DJN and me:

if you want to reproduce a piano well (OK... not really possible, but let's say you want to), somehow having your speakers play to 25 Hz for a once-a-century vibration (which your ears add anyway) is the least of your design purposes.

About DrDyna adding better bass, we all have similar experiences. Lots of non-acoustical reasons, of course. But often it is because the "before" woofer wasn't actually producing the bass we imagined it was. Certainly my experience. TODAY when we say "25 Hz, -6dB" we mean it - not like manufacturer's (or DIYer's) unverified claims of yesteryear.

Ben

Just for the record, I'd actually recommend 25hz as a 0db point. It depends on the design you end up with, but in a lot of the various designs commonly used here on diyaudio apart from IB, Onken and some few closed box solutions, you will experience a nose-dive at f3, making a lot of the sounds below this frequency badly (and hardly noticeably) reproduced. It may end up interfering with the rest of the spectrum in some cases.
 
I have moved to a much smaller room and I have a number of fixed issues. My woofer cabs are built (that won't change) I have a pair of Lambda TD15X woofers (that won't change) and my room is 16' x 15' (that won't change). So, that leaves the port length and adding subs if I need to.

I can't think of anything else I have control over now.
 
One point often ignored is that although there may be low frequency content below 35 or 30 Hz, it is rarely at full level. It's often 10 to 25 dB below the upper bass levels. Multiple 15 inch drivers are not necessary to reproduce this content - in many cases, an optimised 8 inch design will be fine.
 
I'd put a qualifier on this "in a lot of modern recordings". :p

I don't mind a true, solid 20~25Hz - but it's mostly just the feel of the concert hall down that low. Nice to have, but the music doesn't live down there. 35 Hz does it for me.

I suppose the broader idea I was putting out there, despite musical taste or instruments dictating how low we really should go, to me, a solid kick drum or thumped bass guitar sounds different (and better) to me when played with a pair of subs that go down to ~18-20 hz even though the vast majority of the energy is concentrated much higher than that.

For instance, a single thumb or hammer-on from Victor Wooten using even a tenor tuned bass often sounds like the note leads with a solid "pump of air pressure" that you just can't get from something tuned to 35 hz, even though the lowest open string on the tenor-bass is barely in the 40's.

Victor Wooten AMAZING Solo - Hartke "Norwegian Wood" - YouTube

Meh, maybe it's all in my head.
 
No, not in your head.
A slapped bass string on an electric guitar goes down to near DC.

Below are unprocessed screen shots of a low E and a slapped low E on a Yamaha RBX-260 bass guitar, which uses all passive circuitry like any "old school" bass.

As can easily be seen, though the harmonics of 40 Hz are some 20 dB above the fundamental, when slapped, the "fundamental" is as loud as any harmonic, and goes below what most speaker systems can reproduce by a good margin.
When you hear a "slap" like shown on a system with VLF capability, it sounds vastly different than one that rolls off at 40 Hz.

Art

Edit: I had tuned the low string on the bass to B (31 Hz) not E (40 Hz)as written above. The fundamental E is a bit louder than B.
 

Attachments

  • Bass.png
    Bass.png
    66.7 KB · Views: 99
Last edited:
I'd read a door slamming goes down to 8hz, but I'm not sure how many db down it is compared to say above 50hz...............

But it is true, tuning a sub to 20hz, 30hz could easily bottom it out. My 4 6.3mm 18's tuned to 27hz needed a little over 100 watts each to skip past xmax (I think, years ago) at 40hz (max excursion frequency).

I've been very happy with 6th order (+6 boost at tuning so -3db instead of -9db there) for 27hz. It is a compromise, but I think the lack of ulta lows really sounds much cleaner, like a subsonic filter. Before the boosted box (high pass that has Q=2 at the tuning frequency), the level just got quieter and quieter below 50hz, but there was some below 20hz. Once the boost box was in, in went flat to just below 30hz (massive massive pressure), but 20hz seemed non existant.

Still, 125db from 27hz (and up) is HUGE, I never lusted to go deeper. 60hz shook everything. Most people really don't know what low stuff is. They would assume that the rumbling was 20hz, I'd go, nope, 50hz, or 27hz. It's all just pressure down there.

Then again, I had an accoustat spectra 11 (electrostat over sealed 10", unknown c4rossover point). That thing (while not loud, like 83db spl 1w/1m, forget 100db because it would crackle) just went really low, it was suprising and satisfying most but not all of the time. Too bad I was into super loud then (10 years ago), they'd be great for me now.

My buddy had to retune his 27hz monsters (6th order boosted) in a club for 40hz. Then he never ran out of excursion. And LOUD !!!!!

I think new thx spec (unsure of db) is -3db at 35hz for say the big Imax in chicago. Some people preferring their IB over the Th50 (tapped horn).

I guess you can't have it all without a serious serious investment.

Norman
 
Last edited:
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.