Audiophile Bass?

Most recordings being studio works, I'm not surprised! :)

Best,
E

Just about everything in live music is different from an audiophile home system. Can you imagine a jazz or rock group playing in your living room?

I think that what we strive for in our systems is a natural sound, especially with voices, but except in rare situations, it’s not going to sound like a live concert.

The sound quality of almost all amplified performances I have attended has been terrible. If my system sounded like that I’d sell it. There are other aspects of live performance that draws me to concerts.

Rubber feet allow the speaker to move around just enough to smear the sound. Now try solid core speaker cable. 

There is no relation whatsoever between real performance and an audio reproduction on a cd or on a files...We must learn to love them for what they are; very different experiences...

There is no relation between unicorn and a deer or a rhinoceros...The unicorn is beautiful tough...The deer and the rhino also in their own way...

@tomcy6 Agree with you about the poor quality of most amplified performances. My complaint is there is usually a 20 something bass head at the soundboard with the bass on steriods. It sounds awful and is painful. Sometimes I think that the band on stage is not even aware of the poor mix.

I've never had good results with spikes.Multiple subs and room treatments for me.Real life bass is also effected by the space where it is performed and sometimes the sound guy.It will never sound exactly the same as a live performance so nothing wrong about tweaking the sound towards what is most pleasing to yourself.

With a 6 inches bass driver, no sub, I listen to a magnificent clear bass.… No 20-30 hertz for sure but who need that?


Except for the good speakers I owns, the result is linked to :

1-The mechanical controlled environment of each electronic component (vibrations-resonances controls)

2-The cleaned electrical grid of the room and of the house

3a-the "passive" room treatment with materials absorbant and reflective ones

3b-the "active" acoustical space modifications with reflectors, Helmholtz resonators, Schumann generators, etc.

We must not confuse room treatment 3a with acoustical space modifications 3b. because one work in a passive way, the other work in an active way)

I think for the time being I will go with Kyle Bass.

It’s been mentioned many times here that using a rubber device as a speaker footer will not drain the vibration and resonances. It will absorb them resulting in lack of clarity (muddy, unfocused bass).

I’ll agree that a home audio system does not reproduce real-life bass. But I’ve heard a couple systems that produced "is it live or is it Memorex" sound, including the bass.

When I audition my system for friends I still get some who say, where's the bass? My speakers are rated at 25hz, but with dual 6.5" Kevlar woofers they won't sit you back in your seat. I've read reviews that say they have tested them and they do indeed get into the mid to high 20Hz but there are no balls behind it. That is fine with me. I can hear the full range of bass, although I probably only hear down to 30-35Hz, I'm not really after hard thumping bass. I guess a pair of Cornwalls would be better for that.

I'm not sure what this means. The idea is to reproduce accurately the bass that is on the recording be it studio or live. The bass that people hear in large enclosed venues is distorted by echos and standing waves beyond comprehension. The last thing I would want to do is reproduce that. There is accurate and there is everything else. Reproducing the bass of a good live venue is very difficult in a small room, not impossible but close to it. I would venture that not even 1 in 1000 systems even come close. All the theater systems I have heard just make a lot of inaccurate bass and most of the Hi Fi system do not have enough energy or go low enough but do fine above 50 Hz or so. 

baclagg, Cornwalls are great speakers but they do not go that low either.
It is really the acoustics of residential sized rooms that is the issue. Speakers may be rated to get down in the 20s but as you say they have no "balls" down there. It really requires a purpose designed subwoofer system, room control and a lot of power. Having lived with subwoofer since the late 70s I can't live without them. Loud is no good if you can't feel the music. I love the visceral aspect of music. In order to get me to sleep as an infant my mother put a table radio in the crib with me. Screwed up by a table radio. 

I understand the need for deep bass in rock music or some other musical genre...

But I listen mostly jazz and classical, then 40 hertz, even a 40 hertz without balls is ok.... I have that and nothing more is necessary...

When I was in my crib my mother close the door and let me silent in a silent space... :)
That explain probably why i even disconnected my Kreisel sub....:)


With passive room treatment and active modifications of the acoustical space the speakers can plays 40 hertz with his 7 inches bass woofer...Without balls tough, i feel the bass in my body but no walls shaking... :)

I cannot resist mijostyn to tease you.... My best...

I've read reviews that say they have tested them and they do indeed get into the mid to high 20Hz but there are no balls behind it. 

Maybe the effect your friends are looking for is when you have a small to medium room that you can close off completely, the bass can pressurize the room, meaning that you can feel the bass.  This is a really cool effect, but if your system is set up in a dwelling with an open floor plan, it's not going to happen.

You can get a subwoofer that will give you ballsier bass but that comes with more expense, equipment, setup and its own set of problems.  You just have to decide when you're happy with what you've got.  There is always more or something different out there.

mahgister, I do not know if you have ever been to a small jazz club but the rhythm section of a trio or quartet is a very palpable experience. When the bass section of a classical orchestra gets going along with the tympani you also get the same palpable experience. It is accurately achieving that sensation that is the issue. I have never heard or felt a self contained speaker system do it well. Yes, it is not easy to get a separate subwoofer system to do it accurately but it is the solution if managed correctly. I hate to say this but most subwoofers on the market are hopelessly crippled by poor cabinetry, weak electronics and cheap drivers. The only subs on the market that I have been able to consistently integrate and get the right sound and impact are the JL Audio Fathom and Gotham units. My experience with other subs is limited. I like the design of the Magico subs but have not heard them yet. I prefer passive subwoofers mostly because I have outboard digital bass management capabilities and it simplifies the situation with the subs themselves not having electronics in them. I make my own subs which allows me to do stuff with the enclosures that is difficult to do on a commercial basis because it would be too expensive. Most of the distortion comes from the enclosure not the driver.  
Tom, there are some subwoofer systems that people really like like Audiokinesis's Swarm system that are very reasonable priced. All I can say is that I would never live without subwoofers and once you have experience the best bass performance there is no going back. Hang the expense. 

I agree about not wanting to replicate bass, that at a concert is massively distorted. In fact, I walked out of an Elton John concert because the loudness was no longer music. Crap! I really wanted to see and hear his music live.. not midrange notes actually bouncing off the walls, and slapping you, not to mention every single other sound/noise.
 OTOH, I heard YES perform in Tucson, and you bet, I would strive to replicate what I heard that night. They really had it together acoustically, and the musical talent was over the top.

I've done small-ish venue (200 to 500 captive suckers!) sound design/production/mixing for decades and the key to bass is balance...1000 watt 18" subs can be mixed in there with great results exactly like what I do in my home system if you simply apply the same esthetic...make sure they aren't "noticed" by being very careful with levels...that makes the audience feel better than they actually should as hey, they don't deserve me...

Exactly wolf, the best subs are invisible until a low C organ note comes along. Not loud but your vision blurs. 

My 5 are invisible at all times. They are so not there I sometimes have to touch to make sure they're working. It is as if there are no speakers. Only music.

In my limited experience I’ve yet to hear a HT setup that produced realistic, musical bass. It’s too much. Sounds great with movies though.

fj, a properly set up system sounds great whatever it is playing. Like mc I have a large Stewart screen between my ESLs and my system doubles for theater use and does the job nicely even though I have no rear or center channels. And given the power of my system which totals 9000 watts It actually does the job better than any dedicated theater system I have ever heard. Actually most theater systems are cheap poorly performing stuff with boosted bass so you can at least feel the car wrecks and earth quakes. 

Right. Its getting to where I don't even like to use terms like transparent or neutral or revealing because of the way all those are associated with hifi sound that's really just one thing or another that someone has managed to hype in a way some will notice favorably. HT is a wasteland of hype with not one good thing to be said for it. Which is a shame, because HT done right is absolutely wonderful. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 

The bass in my system is beyond bass. For sure it could be even better, there's no such thing as a ceiling as far as I can tell, just endlessly better and better, but its reached a level you have to listen to an awful lot of movies and music to even begin to get a feel for whatever sins its committing... or omitting. Cinematic thuds are never thuds but surgically precise strikes that hit you in the butt- or solar plexus, or chest, or wherever. Point is no two are the same, they are not even thuds really but actually have individual character, which tells me what I'm getting is what's on the sound track. Its never, ever the boom boom boom you hear walking down the aisle at the cineplex, let alone sitting in the million dollar high end demo room.

Its better than all of those, and yet it cost nowhere near what you'd think. Which is why I keep yammering and ranting on and on trying to get through to people. For all the good it does. Mike gets it. Tim. There's a few of us. 

Wish there were more.

^^^ Bass should have a tonal accuracy to it. My system produces it. There are three 10" woofers on each side of the speakers, one front-firing, one rear-firing, and one down-firing. I had a devil of a time getting the room dialed in, in order to get that accurate bass sound.

An acoustic, stand-up bass, should sound like an acoustic stand-up bass. Same with orchestral kettle drums, bass drums, and Koto drums. After all, bass is music, right?

On HT ... I'm not into that, but I have heard fantastic HT systems set up properly with amazingly accurate bass. Cannon shots, explosions, helicopters flying overhead, etc., sound exactly as they should.  It is a totally immersive experience for sure.

If a person is talking about bass "slam," in my opinion, they are on the wrong track.

Frank

IMO  "Audiophile Bass"  should mean a flat response as low as you can get.  Not a big subwoofer going thump thump thump with a 10-20+ dB bass boost.  That is for kids and home theater.
There is a place for subwoofers in some systems.   But they should be crossed over to match where your main speakers start to tail off.    Just like the crossover point for your drivers and tweeters.  You shouldn't notice any humps and everything should have a flat response.

I agree, delkal97.  Bass should be a part of the music, not a dominating force.

I like bread and butter, I like toast and jam.  One of the most surprisingly things I've found in a sea of surprising things is how much bass that is on the CD is missing in action, which I attribute entirely to the fluttering of the disc during play and stray scattered laser light. Yes, I know what you're thinking - "but my system already sounds fabulous."

delka and baclagg a proper subwoofer system requires a cross over with both low pass and high pass filters. They can then be tailored to match perfectly at the 6 dB down point that sounds best. 1/2 the advantage of subwoofers is taking the bass away from the satellite speakers. Just because a speaker rolls off at 40 Hz does not mean that it is not trying to go down to DC. It is. How many threads have you seen about pumping woofers? When a woofer bounces around like this it is Doppler distorting every other note carried by the woofer. Sometimes you can even hear the woofer flutter. For vinyl users this is a major problem. Getting concert level bass off a turntable is no easy feat. 
Papa, again, accurate bass is accurate for any bass. The best systems will do an acoustic bass just as well as an earth quake. I do not hype anything for movies. I just change inputs. I don't change anything for acoustic jazz.
I will also add that I had a hard time getting things near perfect until digital bass management came along. Most audiophiles particularly the vinylistas  have never heard this work. I could never get concert level bass off a turntable until I got a digital subsonic filter that does 80 dB/Oct from 18 Hz. Instead of spending hours critically listening and tuning I just plug in a microphone spend 5 minutes taking a measurement, plug in crossover frequencies and slope, done.

I suspect that bass has different meanings to different people.  There is the bass of the kettle drum in a symphony that has both tone and impact (this may be the tight clean bass that is referenced?).  There is the bass at a club that goes boom, boom, boom and mostly just has impact. There is the bass of the kick drum and bass guitar at a live show in a club that has both impact and tone when played back through a good PA system.  And there is everything in between.

For bass at home to reproduce these different types of bass, the recording matters, the room really matters, the listening position matters and the speakers matter.  Without quality subwoofers, properly placed it is pretty hard if not impossible to get bass that remotely approaches any of the described situations, let alone clean, tight, tonally accurate bass...but at the end of the day, you have to "tune" to the type of bass you prefer...the boom of a club which may require a couple of 18" subs that really are good in the 50-100 hz range....or the symphony quality bass which will probably need a different home set up.

Much if not all of the obsession over bass and subwoofers has to do with the problem I spoke of a couple posts ago. If you could get all the bass information off the disc, the information that is actually there undiscovered, audiophiles would not feel so robbed of bass response. If you could hear what I’ve heard with your ears. 

Geoffkait.
Is the lack of bass just a CD problem or is it a digital music in general problem? I don’t notice better bass when streaming vs listening to a CD.

Excellent question. It all depends on how the files that are streamed are obtained. I do not know the sequence of events for how tracks or albums are streamed. What is their source? But I don’t hear people say, “Wow, the bass is much better streaming than on CD” so I suspect the same problem must extend to streaming. In fact, it appears many people prefer CD to streaming. Obviously it’s complicated because there are many ways to stream. When the CD is stiffened properly and the scattered light is eliminated it’s a whole new ballgame. And it’s not only the bass, it’s top to bottom. The signal to noise ratio goes through the roof. Which is what it should have done from the beginning. I’m not hot doggin ya. 🌭

Come to think of it, I like WAV files better than CD, although I haven't put my finger on it. I will listen closer and try to hear if there might be a cleaner bass when compared.I know that this could go on and on, but the source is the source, and if you thunked there, it won't get better downriver.

By the way, the bass is not only cleaner but goes much lower, has more slam and is more articulate and natural and integrated. Its like you put in a very good subwoofer without the side effects.

Yeah, an audiophiles idea of bass is no bass. For the rest of us, use your tone controls. If you don’t have any, buy a Loki

 

One more comment: people treat systems as this monolithic thing that "can't be touched" as it was sold. Tone controls add the choices you need.