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A question of bass... Several actually.

I recently auditioned Dynaudio 72's and Rega R3's.
I enjoyed them, the Regas mostly. I found the Dynaudios didn't live up to their hype.
When I asked about bass (speakers having full bass response) the salesman (who owns the shop) said "If you want bass you have to shell out the big bucks."
Is that it?
Is it necessary to spend $1000 per speaker or over to have audible, palpable, appropriate bass reproduction?
To be clear I am not talking about disco dancing bass, but bass frequencies are a necessary part of the audio spectrum.
The salesman also mentioned that for high end audio a separate subwoofer is not appropriate as it "doesn't track."
To cover this fully, doesn't putting the amp output into a sub's crossover to be split to satellites compromise imaging etc?
rhanechak

Showing 2 responses by shadorne

shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
When I asked about bass (speakers having full bass response) the salesman (who owns the shop) said "If you want bass you have to shell out the big bucks."
Is that it?
Is it necessary to spend $1000 per speaker or over to have audible, palpable, appropriate bass reproduction?

Good bass is really expensive. Just think about it - a good subwoofer is at least $3K if not a lot more. This is physics. You can get modest amounts of small speaker big bass sound from resonant designs which are underdamped for low cost - however this is really what I would call "fake bass". It isn't bad but it just doesn't sound like real musical instruments that's all.

I'd say I agree with your salesman if you are talking accurate bass reproduction. Big woofers in big boxes aren't cheap.
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 

There is probably some curve you can draw where the cost of accurately reproducing bass notes increases geometrically with lower frequency, requiring increasing quantities of power, woofer area and box volume and bracing.

Yes, exactly.

As for decent bass from most modern speaker designs - I'd agree with that too.

I took the term "palpable, appropriate" to be the OP's criticism of most small box big bass sound. I think it is fair to say that with small speakers either

1) You can have very limited bass extension but excellent bass.
2) You can have great bass extension but merely "good" sounding bass.

You can't have 1) and 2) at least not at realistic SPL levels - so you can't have your cake and eat it so to speak.

The points made about room eq wizard are also important - as the room/setup can spoil the bass through suckouts and humps.
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