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Bass Response and concrete floors

I was talking to a Dynaudio dealer the other day and asking about the Confidence 5's in comparison to the rest of the Dynaudio line. The 5's are apparently being cancelled with two new models being released in the Confidence line, based on the Evidence technology.

Anyway, he asked what type of flooring the speakers would be on. I said concrete with thick pile carpeting. He said the bass response on a concrete floor, even with carpeting, would be muted, that the Confidence 5's need a floor with give to produce decent bass. He said that the bass would roll off around 50 Hz on a concrete floor.

I've seen so many very positive comments about the 5's, but I suppose that people who are satisfied may well be using them on a main floor built on joists. The dealer indicated that I'd be a lot happier with the 3's on my floor.

Anybody know why this would be? More importantly, is this a common behavior of floor standers on concrete floors? Is it a general "rule" that if you have concrete floors, you'll get better performance from a high quality monitor? Thanks for any info -Kirk

kthomas

Showing 2 responses by clueless

clueless
763 posts
 
I agree with Karls, Maxgain, Mg123 that room resonance is usually a poor way to get base. Generally, if you buy well tuned and well designed speakers, you are going to try to use diffusers, ect... to reduce the effects of the room. The problem with relying on your room/floor for bass is that you have no way of knowing what frequencies are going to be reinforced and how big the peak(s) will be. Certainly it is not going to have anything to do with the music and everything with the rather arbitrary dimensions and construction of your room/floor. Nearly all rooms add some bass due to standing waves and generally it's something to remove. Get a speaker that performs well into the low 40hzs or if you are a real bass fan get a sub. Relying on room resonance for bass is going to get you a mushy, flabby, poorly defined lower octive of music. In fact, it won't be music so much as a hum punctuated by an arbitrary peak frequency. You don't want your listening room to resemble typical car audio, eh?

Sincerely, I remain
clueless
763 posts
 
Perfectly valid point Herman but i'm not sure were talking about the exact same thing.

This is not rocket science or, if it is, it's not all rocket science. Of course covering cement is going to make a difference. If you have raw cement and go to wood covering you will notice a diff and it usually will be perceived as "warmer". If you have carpet and pad over the cement and then to go to wood the diff will be much less. Especially if the rest of your room surfaces are "warm."

Do you play an instrument? Take an acoustic guitar and and play 18" in front of tile, glass, concrete poured walls, plasterboard, your living room sofa and the sound board of another guitar. What do you like? Surprisingly many people like bright resonant sound. That's why we all sing in the shower - but that's another story. Anyway, it's not a perfect example of a room at higher volume but it will give you the general idea.

There is a difference in trying to add a "shade" to the sound created by your system with room treatment (floors or walls) and trying to extend frequency response of your system using the room. The later is almost always disasterious because it cannot be controlled (the frequency response curve would be anything but straight.) I repeat, if you do not want a speaker that rolls off at 50Hz buy a speaker that does not roll off there! Then treat your room in a manner so that it will effect all bass and treble frequencies somewhat equally and too your liking.

I remain,
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