Let me tell you a story,
Language is a very good think, but maybe doesn't let us to communicate properly.
I was building a speaker with the same, I mean the VERY same drivers as my main floorstanders (29lts). The complete details of both speakers are irrelevant, but that the "towers" have a f3 around 45Hz and that my new design reaches down to 55Hz. Trying to evaluate the difference due to the 10Hz difference, I connected my floorstanders and my new design to an A/B amp, ONLY with the woofers connected (both are two way). The woofer in question is a 6.5" that goes very high, up to some KHz, so some midrange was present.
I was at first a bit sad, because the bass of my new design didn't reach as low as the big boxes, and was less lively. Well, I'll need a sub because my 15lts boxes don't deliver the bass instrument. Not to say that there is not bass, but not enough even for a small room.
Thinking that nothing can beat physics and that 29 lts is always better than 15, I continued the building a bit pesimistic.
I fitted the tweeter and the same filter as the floorstanders only to my new design. Guess what happened?
The bass was now all there, now putting the big boxes into shame.
Conclusion:
When we say something like: Basses sound great and deep in this system, are we really hearing the low notes?
Language is a very good think, but maybe doesn't let us to communicate properly.
I was building a speaker with the same, I mean the VERY same drivers as my main floorstanders (29lts). The complete details of both speakers are irrelevant, but that the "towers" have a f3 around 45Hz and that my new design reaches down to 55Hz. Trying to evaluate the difference due to the 10Hz difference, I connected my floorstanders and my new design to an A/B amp, ONLY with the woofers connected (both are two way). The woofer in question is a 6.5" that goes very high, up to some KHz, so some midrange was present.
I was at first a bit sad, because the bass of my new design didn't reach as low as the big boxes, and was less lively. Well, I'll need a sub because my 15lts boxes don't deliver the bass instrument. Not to say that there is not bass, but not enough even for a small room.
Thinking that nothing can beat physics and that 29 lts is always better than 15, I continued the building a bit pesimistic.
I fitted the tweeter and the same filter as the floorstanders only to my new design. Guess what happened?
The bass was now all there, now putting the big boxes into shame.
Conclusion:
When we say something like: Basses sound great and deep in this system, are we really hearing the low notes?
It should be obvious that sounds produced on a musical instrument aren't limited to a narrow frequency range but can span several octaves. A good example would be the sound produced by a bow being drawn across the string of a bass. What may be expected is a low tone but what you get a higher frequency from the friction of the action, a mid from the instrument's cabinet resonating and finally a low tone from the vibration of the string. I've heard subwoofers referred to as "bass reinforcement". Perhaps that's more accurate than we may think.
Yes, I'm aware of the harmonic content of string instruments, I play one. But what surprised me is that without the tweeter, the low fundamental tone didn't seem that low. With the tweeter the fundamental tone was very present, or seemed that way.
So, thinking about what should be improved in a hifi system, and considering that my experience yesterday proves that the brain processes the sub tones and recreate the main ones, the midrange fidelity is of paramount importance.
So, thinking about what should be improved in a hifi system, and considering that my experience yesterday proves that the brain processes the sub tones and recreate the main ones, the midrange fidelity is of paramount importance.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.