Good day, Gentlemen
I had a very interesting experience last night, when listening to my new full range speakers. I have just brought my full-range speakers online and was have a listening, tweaking session and I was very disappointed with the bass response. There just was none. I knew from previous testing that I should have a good response down to at least 70 - 60Hz, and should be able to get another half octave after more tweaking of the transmission line. compensating for diffraction loss and etc. But there was nothing much below 150Hz, but above that the music was clean and unbelievable, actually very scary listening. In one quiet piano passage, I actually could hear the fingers of the pianist hit the ivory!! Unreal!
I normally listen to vinyl, but for this particular listening session I had grabbed some CD’s. My LP to CD ratio is about 10:1. Well, I do have several albums that are on both CD and LP, so I grabbed my LP's and Eureka! I had good clean response to 55Hz. The bottom end of the keyboard was strong right done to the bottom. I picked several other LP's(I actually had about a 4 hour listening session) and the result was the same. Switched back to CD's and again the bass was anaemic. Mystery?!
I then remembered reading an article some months ago that made mention of RIAA Equalisation. As we all know, LP's were all cut with a bass slope to reduce rumble and etc, and then the phono stage inverts this attenuation in its equalisation section to restore the bass to its proper level. The article then stated that the RIAA method has never been dropped and CD's were burned with the same bass roll off, but since the signal is run directly to the gain stage, there is no inverting of this roll-off. I am not a sound tech, but after last nights listening, I must admit that there was a obvious difference between the same cut on CD and LP.
I know that these speakers love vinyl and spit CD's right out at you. Unbelievable, recordings that I had thought good, are now almost unlistenable. But I can tell you that I have never heard piano solos, jazz, James Galway, and vocals like these speakers produce.
So maybe those of you who are a bit more in the know about sound engineering can clear up this anomaly a bit.
Surf, Sun & Sound
I had a very interesting experience last night, when listening to my new full range speakers. I have just brought my full-range speakers online and was have a listening, tweaking session and I was very disappointed with the bass response. There just was none. I knew from previous testing that I should have a good response down to at least 70 - 60Hz, and should be able to get another half octave after more tweaking of the transmission line. compensating for diffraction loss and etc. But there was nothing much below 150Hz, but above that the music was clean and unbelievable, actually very scary listening. In one quiet piano passage, I actually could hear the fingers of the pianist hit the ivory!! Unreal!
I normally listen to vinyl, but for this particular listening session I had grabbed some CD’s. My LP to CD ratio is about 10:1. Well, I do have several albums that are on both CD and LP, so I grabbed my LP's and Eureka! I had good clean response to 55Hz. The bottom end of the keyboard was strong right done to the bottom. I picked several other LP's(I actually had about a 4 hour listening session) and the result was the same. Switched back to CD's and again the bass was anaemic. Mystery?!
I then remembered reading an article some months ago that made mention of RIAA Equalisation. As we all know, LP's were all cut with a bass slope to reduce rumble and etc, and then the phono stage inverts this attenuation in its equalisation section to restore the bass to its proper level. The article then stated that the RIAA method has never been dropped and CD's were burned with the same bass roll off, but since the signal is run directly to the gain stage, there is no inverting of this roll-off. I am not a sound tech, but after last nights listening, I must admit that there was a obvious difference between the same cut on CD and LP.
I know that these speakers love vinyl and spit CD's right out at you. Unbelievable, recordings that I had thought good, are now almost unlistenable. But I can tell you that I have never heard piano solos, jazz, James Galway, and vocals like these speakers produce.
So maybe those of you who are a bit more in the know about sound engineering can clear up this anomaly a bit.
Surf, Sun & Sound
