I'm with Pano on this one.
Why anyone wants to argue mono bass as better is beyond my comprehension.
Can rooms large or small make it hard to locate some bass from the millions of different songs played on millions of different systems? Probably, but this is hardly a reason to lower the bar.
If you can't hear the difference, perhaps we are listening to different aspects.
To my ears, mono bass clearly takes on it's own individual presence in the room It sounds as if it is playing from a separate system. It doesn't necessarily sound terrible, just not as natural.
You can argue all you want, I understand some bass would be hard to differentiate, but why throw the baby out with the bath water.
I just proved it to my self I threw on a track with extreme stereo separation. The Beatles "Come together". This song sounds quite different with mono bass. You may like it better, but Pano is right.
Why anyone wants to argue mono bass as better is beyond my comprehension.
Can rooms large or small make it hard to locate some bass from the millions of different songs played on millions of different systems? Probably, but this is hardly a reason to lower the bar.
If you can't hear the difference, perhaps we are listening to different aspects.
To my ears, mono bass clearly takes on it's own individual presence in the room It sounds as if it is playing from a separate system. It doesn't necessarily sound terrible, just not as natural.
You can argue all you want, I understand some bass would be hard to differentiate, but why throw the baby out with the bath water.
I just proved it to my self I threw on a track with extreme stereo separation. The Beatles "Come together". This song sounds quite different with mono bass. You may like it better, but Pano is right.
Only slightly. Without (significant) reflection resonances (modes) don't develop . . . at least nowhere near the extent that they do in concrete bunkers or basements. It really does make a substantial difference in the bass . . . light frame construction does have some advantages.
Of course it's not completely anechoic . . . but there are simple ways to deal with what reflections there are.
Dr. Geddes, I think that we disagree here. This does not only apply where you can find a "fast transient" in my view and based on my own experimentation.
We agree, of course that the fundamental LF energy in something like a bass drum (or tympany) hit by a stick (a mallet isn't a good example to discuss) *is not* a "fast transient".
However the point in time that the drum hit is made is quite specific. The resulting wave from the combination of the hit + the membrane's vibrations form a very specific combination. If one moves the LF vibrations in time WRT to the HF (energy more or less directly from the stick hit) AND reproduces this in stereo, the resulting sonic image is somewhat "wrong". In mono it is somewhat more difficult to discern, I expect.
As a thought experiment one can think of moving the time relationship of the two forwards and backwards. Obviously, with enough time between them in either direction the "wrongness" becomes blatant. How much difference is audible is the question, of course. I'm saying that less than one might expect *does* make a difference in the case where the rest of the spectrum (the higher portion) is not similarly skewed (which it frequently well may be).
I likened this to the difference between a standard lens and a high quality lens.
I do understand that as one moves about the room/listening space the relationship between any two sound sources must necessarily change and vary. But if it is never nearly correct at any point, then it must diverge more, not converge.
What I have found is that recordings sound as if they "make more sense" and that it becomes easier to hear subtleties such as size and space, location, reverberation and simply "what is going on".
We agree, of course that the fundamental LF energy in something like a bass drum (or tympany) hit by a stick (a mallet isn't a good example to discuss) *is not* a "fast transient".
However the point in time that the drum hit is made is quite specific. The resulting wave from the combination of the hit + the membrane's vibrations form a very specific combination. If one moves the LF vibrations in time WRT to the HF (energy more or less directly from the stick hit) AND reproduces this in stereo, the resulting sonic image is somewhat "wrong". In mono it is somewhat more difficult to discern, I expect.
As a thought experiment one can think of moving the time relationship of the two forwards and backwards. Obviously, with enough time between them in either direction the "wrongness" becomes blatant. How much difference is audible is the question, of course. I'm saying that less than one might expect *does* make a difference in the case where the rest of the spectrum (the higher portion) is not similarly skewed (which it frequently well may be).
I likened this to the difference between a standard lens and a high quality lens.
I do understand that as one moves about the room/listening space the relationship between any two sound sources must necessarily change and vary. But if it is never nearly correct at any point, then it must diverge more, not converge.
What I have found is that recordings sound as if they "make more sense" and that it becomes easier to hear subtleties such as size and space, location, reverberation and simply "what is going on".
I hope that you are aware that virtually all CDs have mono bass. Kind of blows your argument away.
Last edited:
So you don't think that there are modes in your room? Ever measured it at LFs? I doubt it. I have never seen a room without them so if you have one then it is a miracle. Weak construction does add some damping, but there are still modes. A STL (sound transmission loss) of the walls of only 3 dB will still have modes, because 50% of the energy on the walls is reflected. Most walls have STL on the order of 20 dB or higher. My room - with special walls - is about 45-50.
Bear - you are talking about bass instruments NOT bass frequencies. They are not the same thing. All instruments have HF transients, that's what you localize on, not the bass frequency portions of these instruments.
I guess that we will just have to disagree, but I really don't think that you are getting my point.
We're talking about the use and placement of subwoofers in the context of reproducing sound. The separation of frequencies, essentially LF sinewaves being sent to the subs. Does the position of those speakers matter? I think that's the issue?
I don't know too many people who listen to only subwoofers, except for testing purposes.
My point is that you can not divorce the subs from the rest of the system, regardless of other benefits or features that placements *other* than in a phase or "timed" relationship to the rest of the speaker system.
Mono bass?
I guess that depends on what you are listening to.
And who recorded it.
So, if one aims for the lowest common denominator I guess it makes no difference, mono, stereo, all the same.
Most "pan-potted" recordings are mono, with stereo "placement" solely by amplitude. Almost all common commercial multi-track recordings have been made this way for a long long time. So, if you go for this as the ultimate standard you end up short imo.
I'd expect this is not important to many.
I kinda think ur avoiding dealing with my point.
I don't know too many people who listen to only subwoofers, except for testing purposes.
My point is that you can not divorce the subs from the rest of the system, regardless of other benefits or features that placements *other* than in a phase or "timed" relationship to the rest of the speaker system.
Mono bass?
I guess that depends on what you are listening to.
And who recorded it.
So, if one aims for the lowest common denominator I guess it makes no difference, mono, stereo, all the same.
Most "pan-potted" recordings are mono, with stereo "placement" solely by amplitude. Almost all common commercial multi-track recordings have been made this way for a long long time. So, if you go for this as the ultimate standard you end up short imo.
I'd expect this is not important to many.
I kinda think ur avoiding dealing with my point.
Um . . . making things up? It's a room, not an "outdoors", so it's not completely anechoic. But in the bass it's very lossey . . . so modal resonances are weak. Not completely absent, of course, but weak. And the result is clean bass reproduction with neither the "boom" nor the pronounced nulls commonly observed in more reflective (at low frequency) rooms. It would take many feet of bass traps to match the "loss to outside" that my room is naturally blessed with . . . and the result is a clarity and accuracy of bass reproduction that multiple subs in a "live" room can't hope to match.
The down side is an elevated noise floor, as there is less isolation from outside sounds. I seldom miss a UPS delivery . . .
Care to share some measurements?
There can be huge differences between rooms depending on wall construction method. I've found that the common US wood tent has way less modal problems than the common EU concrete bunker.
P.S. Why has this thread been moved to "the lounge"???
Last edited:
Yep, these EU bunkers are pretty bad.
That said, I have a single 2x12" sealed sub sat in the corner.
I eq'd it flat outside, and then threw it in there. Nowhere else to put it, and room modes are all over the show.
Its mostly used for HT though, so ultimate LF audio precision isn't high on the priority list. Getting the floor to bounce at 14Hz, however, is.
When I get my own place, I'll do it properly. Promise...
Chris
Correct, no-one argues that a multisub in a hopeless room is reference. But see it this way - you have good damping in the modal region, stereo (or multichannel) speakers with usable output in the modal region. Result is quite good, but still bass varies with listening position and it is still lumpy (just measure it!). Now you add a mono sub, decorrelated and spatially separated from the mains, playing only in the modal region. Bass in the modal region (every room has this, wheter rectangle or not) will be smoother if correctly implemented. Whats not to like?
Resonance. The slow decay of all those "modes" (including the ones excited by the added sub to get a more uniform response) is not in the original music.
Do multiple subs generally prolong modal decay?
In the case of a DBA the opposite is true. It creates free field conditions void of any modal decay.
Last edited:
Pretty much everything mixed in the 60s and 70s (for distribution on vinyl, which can't handle large vertical excursion) was mixed to mono in the bass, usually in the studio, if not then when mastered. So unless you can find remixes of the original studio tapes you get mono bass. The habit persists, largely in anticipation of playback on headphones or in a car. The same is (has always been) done with movie sound tracks (LFE obviously, and the entirety of the voice track almost always), and most if not all live performances (which are commonly mixed to mono overall to get uniform sound throughout the house). When you find actual "stereo bass" in a commercial recording it is usually either a gimmick "effect" or a beginner's mistake.
I don't really see your point. That there is a difference when the speakers are separated at LFs than when they aren't? Well yes they are different, but is that significant? I don't think so.
Not necessarily, and with proper delays they can be designed not to, but probably yes in most installations, to the extent that they actually "smooth" bass response. "Modes" are resonances . . . you suppress them by reflection control and damping, not by more excitation.
"Pretty much" is not really very conclusive is it. RIAA (attempts) to takes care excursion issues.
The problem herein is at what frequency do you design for? If your mono cut-off is higher then the engineers, then in effect you have created your own analog signal processing.
One could argue that high frequency can be difficult to locate depending on the SPL, due to room reflections. By this logic we should also make the tweeters work in mono, cause hey some times you might not be able to tell...
Similar to compression in photographs, it depends what your end needs are.
If you just want some bass in your car, then hey the mono bass doesn't really matter given the overall huge improvement in SQ. Chances are this person also listens primarily music that was recorded with this mono bass in mind.
Neither one of these situations would be considered "high-fidelity".
If you are listening to something with mono bass then at least the stereo aspect will be left intact if using a stereo setup.
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.