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Bass rant

Does anyone else surmise that the minions weaned on exaggerated THX sound in sticky floored cineplex's, sold on window-shaking subwoofers in their motor vehicles, and subjected to hearing loss in loud stadium concerts - might have trouble understanding what constitutes an accurate bass guitar tone/timbre/volume? I read post after post on this and other forums of those decrying their systems lack of bass. While I grew up listening to a lot of live music in nightclubs and stadiums from Bobby Short at The Carlyle, to Yo Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble, to John Fogerty at The Greek Theater, I believe I can differentiate the realism of an upright bass and one unnaturally amped (acoustic or electric), and yet I cannot understand all the bleeding over of the home theater systems exaggerated bass sound into many dedicated audiophile sound systems. Please educate me.
byegolly

Showing 1 response by ethanh

ethanh
48 posts
 
In my experience bass from small woofers, like what you find in most stand-mount two-ways, never sounds realistic. It doesn't matter how low the speaker goes, if there isn't enough surface area moving you won't get that rich and visceral sound of an upright bass or percussion instrument. For me at least I think this inherent compromise in many modern speaker designs leads to a nagging dissatisfaction with the lower frequencies.

At some point I suppose I'll just have to pony up and buy a speaker featuring big transducers and big cabinet volume.
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