Does that not mean that for the majority of people that this is totally irrelevant. as this is far lower a frequency than most audio systems can reproduce, and for the majority of the select few that have a decent sound system that the Godzilla movie might sound more impressive due to the lack of infrasonic crud wasting power and speaker excursion!
Absolute rubbish.
Sorry, I thought this was a subwoofer forum, I'm not talking to the people who listen to a 5.1 system they picked up at Walmart that is 3dB down at 35Hz.
Even if your system is flat to 20Hz (not that hard to achieve) you will be able to notice a difference in depth and dynamic range when comparing godzilla to captain america.
If you don't find this information relevant then post on someone else's thread.
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I can imagine a very similar conversation happening back in the early '50s: "You don't need anything above 8 or 10kHz. A few systems might manage it, but it's a waste. It's only noise that distracts, nothing musical up there."
Strange thing, I used to feel the same about the low range; a fun novelty, but not really necessary. Then I put together a system with other design goals in mind that only happened to be flat into the single digits because I left the amp's HPF bypassed for running test sweeps.
There's music down there! Crazy how much just a proper representation of the low end adds such palpability to the sound. With good recordings that aren't brickwalled at 20Hz, the presence is amplified an astounding degree. Musicians go from being heard through a window to being in the room. It's the difference between a recording and a live performance.
We miss a lot when there aren't the nuances of a slap on a bass, the pluck of a string that sets it vibrating, the gutteral growl of strings as the bow first gets them moving, the whoosh across the reed of the brass, the first low frequency pulse of a bass drum's whomp, even the foot tapping to keep time on a wood floor. Real music on an intimate scale (not amplified through bass bins where the design priorities are portability and efficiency, not absolute extension) has an amazing amount of that that we've gotten used to missing. When it's returned, though, and the recordings haven't been hacked by decades of bad habits to suit limited equipment and ingrained practices, it's...well, like having a tweeter when there wasn't one before.
Sure, there's most of the information there, but the experience is not the same.
Sometimes, you completely miss the point of the music. A system that can't go below 20Hz (10Hz even) will not convey the intent of the below tracks, for example, and, yes, hearing it one way and then the other, there is very much that is being missed.
Movies are no exception unless they've been filtered to meet the needs of the least impressive, but most common of mass market systems rather than the best audio experience. You're not one of the first group, so why settle for less than the latter?
Strange thing, I used to feel the same about the low range; a fun novelty, but not really necessary. Then I put together a system with other design goals in mind that only happened to be flat into the single digits because I left the amp's HPF bypassed for running test sweeps.
There's music down there! Crazy how much just a proper representation of the low end adds such palpability to the sound. With good recordings that aren't brickwalled at 20Hz, the presence is amplified an astounding degree. Musicians go from being heard through a window to being in the room. It's the difference between a recording and a live performance. We miss a lot when there aren't the nuances of a slap on a bass, the pluck of a string that sets it vibrating, the gutteral growl of strings as the bow first gets them moving, the whoosh across the reed of the brass, the first low frequency pulse of a bass drum's whomp, even the foot tapping to keep time on a wood floor. Real music on an intimate scale (not amplified through bass bins where the design priorities are portability and efficiency, not absolute extension) has an amazing amount of that that we've gotten used to missing. When it's returned, though, and the recordings haven't been hacked by decades of bad habits to suit limited equipment and ingrained practices, it's...well, like having a tweeter when there wasn't one before.
Sure, there's most of the information there, but the experience is not the same.
Sometimes, you completely miss the point of the music. A system that can't go below 20Hz (10Hz even) will not convey the intent of the below tracks, for example, and, yes, hearing it one way and then the other, there is very much that is being missed.
Movies are no exception unless they've been filtered to meet the needs of the least impressive, but most common of mass market systems rather than the best audio experience. You're not one of the first group, so why settle for less than the latter?
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Godzilla has some blue and green down to about 3 Hz, what is the dB/vs color scale?
What is the vertical scale in time?
Spectrum Lab is a bit of a pain to use, but the green shading below 10Hz looks to be around -45 to -50dB and lower if holding to how the program defaults. The vertical scale should be seconds, so a minute and 12 seconds, roughly. (Unless the settings were tweaked.)
Scroll speed is just over a minute to scroll from top to bottom. Here is the scale. The godzilla pic is a digital loopback of the response so the stuff below 20 is plenty weak.
@Deafuser -No problem man!
@Diogenes -Couldn't agree more!
Finally, some people who get it! It's nice not getting $hit on for liking full bandwidth reproduction.
@Deafuser -No problem man!
@Diogenes -Couldn't agree more!
Finally, some people who get it! It's nice not getting $hit on for liking full bandwidth reproduction.
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I'm a fan of deep bass reproduction too. The point being made is just that this place is where we discuss how to build speakers that will reproduce deep bass. There are other forums which have threads dedicated to analysing movies to determine their bass content, and your analysis might be more enthusiastically received there. For example:
The New Master List of BASS in Movies with Frequency Charts - AVS Forum
The New Master List of BASS in Movies with Frequency Charts - AVS Forum
There are lots of people that get it when it comes to low frequency reproduction, and those who don't most often have never experienced the difference.
For music there may not be that much content at low frequencies, some electronic music has it, and some rare recordings are unfiltered giving that subtle sense of atmosphere.
For sound effects in movies though, that is a different world.
We have low-freq content all around us everyday; doors closing, someone walking on a wooden floor, outdoor we have wind, and then the occasional bigger events like avalanches, cannons, explosions.
Filtering away this information destroys the realism of the event.
This is not only about house-wrecking subsonic bass, it is also about preserving the natural spectral balance and atmosphere.
When done right, the difference is very real and adds another dimension to the movie experience.
It is not very difficult to achieve usable response down low, well below 20hz.
Depends on how loud you listen, louder requires more capacity and larger subwoofers.
How low to go depends on several factors, but it is generally accepted that down to around 15hz is useful.
Below that requires tactile feedback from floor or moving structures to be noticed well, still the change in pressure will actually add to the experience if it is sufficiently loud enough.
There is a huge difference from 20hz and down to 15hz, where effects are felt and not really heard.
The storm scene in Kon-Tiki, and the landing on the island from the same movie, are great examples from a sound tracks that exploits the use of low frequencies to add to the experience.
For music there may not be that much content at low frequencies, some electronic music has it, and some rare recordings are unfiltered giving that subtle sense of atmosphere.
For sound effects in movies though, that is a different world.
We have low-freq content all around us everyday; doors closing, someone walking on a wooden floor, outdoor we have wind, and then the occasional bigger events like avalanches, cannons, explosions.
Filtering away this information destroys the realism of the event.
This is not only about house-wrecking subsonic bass, it is also about preserving the natural spectral balance and atmosphere.
When done right, the difference is very real and adds another dimension to the movie experience.
It is not very difficult to achieve usable response down low, well below 20hz.
Depends on how loud you listen, louder requires more capacity and larger subwoofers.
How low to go depends on several factors, but it is generally accepted that down to around 15hz is useful.
Below that requires tactile feedback from floor or moving structures to be noticed well, still the change in pressure will actually add to the experience if it is sufficiently loud enough.
There is a huge difference from 20hz and down to 15hz, where effects are felt and not really heard.
The storm scene in Kon-Tiki, and the landing on the island from the same movie, are great examples from a sound tracks that exploits the use of low frequencies to add to the experience.
The point being made... is that I should go to another forum to talk about LFE content in source material? Who made that point other than you did just now?
Why would that subject matter not be appropriate in this Subwoofers forum? Who am I making uncomfortable by showing people what they can expect their subwoofer system to reproduce with 2 new action flicks?
With decent subs in play I hear things like traffic noise outside of the building where the filming is taking place.
Doors slamming, distant car horns, city noises and many other things that are not apparent with -3 dB @ 35 Hz woofers.
I agree wholeheartedly that subwoofers going at least to 20 Hz or even 15 add a missing dimension (actually a missing octave) to good sounding movies and even digital satellite TV programming.
My eyes have been opened.
Dave
As a PS. I asked my Daughter who lives about 200 yards away in the woods and over a small hill if she ever hears my sound system.
She told me, most times she doesn't hear it at all, but every now and then it sounds to her like she is right inside a movie theater.
Made me re-evaluate my listening habits.
Doors slamming, distant car horns, city noises and many other things that are not apparent with -3 dB @ 35 Hz woofers.
I agree wholeheartedly that subwoofers going at least to 20 Hz or even 15 add a missing dimension (actually a missing octave) to good sounding movies and even digital satellite TV programming.
My eyes have been opened.
Dave
As a PS. I asked my Daughter who lives about 200 yards away in the woods and over a small hill if she ever hears my sound system.
She told me, most times she doesn't hear it at all, but every now and then it sounds to her like she is right inside a movie theater.
Made me re-evaluate my listening habits.
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And unfortunately I get to hear the air handling systems <20 Hz resonant frequency on some of the local news because the idiot "engineers" don't know enough to put a HP filter on the announcer's lav mics
There are many recordings and broadcasts done on monitors that don't reproduce VLF, resulting in a lot of unintended content.
This is completely NOT the point of a Blu-Ray. This is something you do manually in your receiver or on the amplifier itself. This movie should have surpassed Cloverfield for ULF content given that no theater in this country could reproduce much less handle the bass much like Cloverfield before it. Ergo, the movie was deemed uninvolving in theaters. Audio fans have been waiting for this film in particular because the cinema mix clearly digs as deep as Cloverfield, so to SSF it is simply ridiculous sound engineering. It's not the studio's job to protect your subwoofer, it's yours and the sub's designer (if not DIY).
Yeah, this movie could have been epic in the sound design and mixing but I was so disappointed to see that they chopped the most interesting octaves out.
I don't even think that it is intended to protect consumer systems as they already have limiters and HP filters in place so that the sub owners don't nuke their stuff playing something like Cloverfield at reference.
I think it is another greedy production house that cuts the low end so they have more headroom to jack the overall level of the mix up in volume. Loudness wars seems to be crossing over from pop music to movies as the knob jockeys try to appeal more to the novice who thinks louder means better. I hope that it doesn't eventually turn watching a movie into what Television sounds like, all jacked up with limiters to get your attention and be as loud as inhumanely possible. But that's why I try to get their attention now through forums like this and teach people that it is unacceptable.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people who have not even experienced ULF (except for in everyday life of course
) reproduction that feel the need to put down anyone who enjoys feeling those octaves in a mix, saying that it is unnecessary noise or some other kind of unmitigated drivel. I have been a part of at least a dozen blind tests with a HPF engaged and then taken out in a full range system and NOT ONE person didn't notice the difference and they all preferred the unfiltered content. It's more accurate to real life to have it in the mix and just a whole hell of a lot of fun too!
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