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 4 responses by shadorne

Indeed it is the first thing people look at on a speaker specification - deeper the better no matter how bad it sounds. Good accurate tight bass response with low distortion is like an ultra expensive finely aged french wine - most people would not even appreciate it and nearly all will go for the "Babycham" bass response. So what's new...yawn.
With bass go big, large drivers, low excursions, hi-eff. Thus massive. If you cheat physics you get a conventional subwoofer and thus subwoofer sound to bass.

Exactly large 12"+ drivers in a massive box is the way to go or else it is just BEP Boom Boom Pow...
I pulled from theaters have drivers near 20-30-40 years old work fine the new stuff well...you find cooked voice coils or cones shreaded

I am not surprised - woofer construction quality is appalling today.
Back in the day theaters used some of the better transducers available, today they mostly buy cheap

That was my point - $50 Made in China low quality wins everytime versus $1000 hand made and high quality from a boutique manufacturer for pro soudn applications...