Do most people prefer tight bass or non tight bass?

I like my Bass pan fried in butter.  Light sprinkle of salt & pepper.  Isn't English a fun language.  

I would not frame the issue in those terms. Bass intensity and detail are more accurate. Does your subwoofer dovetail with your speakers' woofers? Do drums and stringed bass instruments sound the way they would in live  small venue music?  Or do your subwoofers hit like a crude but satisfying blunt instruments so you enjoy yourself too much to care about the inaccuracy? 

Bass is not tight. If so it would be treble.

Tight for me.  Tight means accurate when I listen

Lots of great answers but bass response should reflect what the music or the movie requires. It should not in any way shape or form distort the original intent of the artist. But each listener has different expectations and the ultimate test depends on so many different factors that can never be quantified in a single answer

The first consideration must be : What is the SOURCE of the bass ?  Bass is not generic --- it is specific.  Is the source instrument bowed, plucked, blown or struck to produce the bass in question ?  The "leading edge" of the sound predicates the instrument that produces it.  A bowed doublebass has no "slam".  A tuba cannot sustain a note as long as a bowed doublebass can unless the tuba player uses a technique called "circular breathing".  A percussive or struck bass will decay rapidly whereas a blown or bowed bass can be sustained at the will of the player.  Once the source is determined, then a correct assessment of bass can be made.

Of course, with the advent of electronically produced bass, all bets are off since bass guitar can be sent directly into the recording console without the benefit of any acoustical environment to "tailor" the sound.  "FutureMan", the bass player with "Bela Fleck and The Flecktones" added octaves below what one would expect with his ground shaking "Drumitar" instrument that he invented.  So, in regards to electronic bass, your guess is as good as mine.

Put me down for "accurate bass" !

Good point, if it is depth charges then not as tight is ok. 

Quote - Bass intensity and detail are more accurate.

I want the bass to represent the fundamental tone of an instrument and voice.  Bass frequencies range from 20 to 250 Hz with sub-bass from 20 to 60 Hz generally.  For 60 to 250 Hz is should be detailed and represent the recorded sounds, hopefully correct and balanced with the upper frequency spectrum.  As to sub-bass, there’s detail and bloat.  Depends on the taste of the listener which is preferable.  I prefer detail without bloat, intense as the recording dictates (a mastering decision).  I guess I’m spoiled as I have tunable sub-bass with my Von Schweikert VR9 SE Mk2, easy to place speakers (just adjust for the upper frequencies) with very wide dispersion,, tight/fast and very deep bass (15" Rel powered sub built-in).  My other speaker also has deep and tight/punchy bass, the Legacy Signature III with 3 10" woofers.  I sold my Legacy Focus speakers as it had 3 12" woofers with very deep and sloppy/slow bass relatively speaking.

I like it Velvety and Nuanced with feeling.

I like the bass my Rythmik F12G produces for me with its paper cone, servo control, and multitude of adjustment possibilities - in particular its three damping adjustments (high/medium/low) that work for ALL music genres .  For the jazz/blues/classic rock music I most listen to, high damping is king.  It gives me the tightest, most articulate bass possible.  An incredibly fast, resolving subwoofer (no affiliation w/the brand, just a fan).

In a word (or words) I'm partial to tight bass, which seems to me to dovetail with the term "articulate".  I don't know if you can get one w/out the other.  Or......they're simply synonymous audiophile terms.  Can bass be "articulate"...but not "tight"?  

You decide. 

What kind of music do you listen to? If you have a lot of classical music, you want bass that delivers harmonics in the cello and double bass section. (less tight, but more harmonically accurate).

If you listen to pop or rock, then more concussive bass might serve your music well.

Battered

The first consideration must be : What is the SOURCE of the bass ?  Bass is not generic --- it is specific.  Is the source instrument bowed, plucked, blown or struck to produce the bass in question ?  The "leading edge" of the sound predicates the instrument that produces it.  A bowed doublebass has no "slam".  A tuba cannot sustain a note as long as a bowed doublebass can unless the tuba player uses a technique called "circular breathing".  A percussive or struck bass will decay rapidly whereas a blown or bowed bass can be sustained at the will of the player.  Once the source is determined, then a correct assessment of bass can be made.

Of course, with the advent of electronically produced bass, all bets are off since bass guitar can be sent directly into the recording console without the benefit of any acoustical environment to "tailor" the sound.  "FutureMan", the bass player with "Bela Fleck and The Flecktones" added octaves below what one would expect with his ground shaking "Drumitar" instrument that he invented.  So, in regards to electronic bass, your guess is as good as mine.

 

 

 

Great response. Thank you for this.

I don’t think most modern audiophiles listen to classical or jazz music a lot, so acoustic instruments are not something they seem to know well. If I go by what I hear on YouTube, acoustic instruments are practically non-existent on most pop songs.

By contrast, if this was 1982, it would still be mostly acoustic 🎸(and analogue). I can’t fathom not hearing all the beautiful instruments that exist. And it’s ironic: we’ve arrived in the ’Digital Age’  where everything is available, but we use fewer instruments to make music than we ever have and most of that is electronic instruments. Which is wildly ironic, since High End designers were trying to make their component reproduce all the colors of an orchestra playing acoustic instruments, only to have so much music reduced, 20 years later in pop music, to a diet composed (almost completely) of drums, guitar, synthesizer for the most part. The odd instrument is thrown in, but mostly, the tonal palette in pop music is pretty "gray"-sounding.

Actually, this is a very cool bass track that "stacks" an acoustic bass on an electric bass.

https://youtu.be/oG6fayQBm9w

@gbmcleod 

I don’t disagree with your post, mind you; just to play devil’s advocate though, I’ll say that digital instruments allow us to hear sounds and orchestrations we’ve never heard before. I’d say that’s a good thing, and I respect the opinions of those who think otherwise.

I listen to a lot of electronic / digitally produced music. One day, it struck me that the music to which I was listening had never vibrated air until my speakers reproduced it. Think about that! Pretty interesting, isn’t it? 

Yes, it is!

I suppose digital instruments reproduce some things correctly, but when they’re trying to reproduce the sound of an acoustic instruments. Well, they do a good job. Just not the whole enchilada

By that, I mean "as well as analogue." When I hear a french horn on vinyl, I know instantly it is a French horn. When I hear it on some digital recordings, I can hear that the tonal quality is not the same. I can’t say that I hear that on vinyl. At least, not the records of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.

When I listen to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtsTT-vJ9M4&list=FL8xpTP3iFfuJnnEXYYR5UGQ&index=3

I hear the brass, and  they are recognizably the instruments I hear in the hall. The performance appears to have been VERY well captured, and the tonal qualities of instruments are there. When I hear this piece through digital (usually, a CD player), the tonal richness is less "there." It still sounds good, but it is not quite all the way "there."  (I’m talking about this performance AND on other recordings.)

And I haven’t found digital - in the past  - to be fully likelike enough, that it is indistinguishable from the actual instrument in life. Many, many people who do not listen to classical, opera, jazz or blues will never miss this. But it is on  some  recordings, whether they "care" or not. And if it is there, I want to hear it reproduced accurately (aka: LIVE).

I don’t mind people who say, "Well, I don’t care about that." That’s their right; it’s their preference. But when people then say, that $20K CD player is no better than my $1000 CD player, and start bashing others (with better systems than them, usually!), I wonder: what kind of music do they listen to?

Because it’s patently untrue that a cheap dac will usually match one of the "giants." I’ve owned excellent,  VERY top-of-the-line digital DACs, and they sounded....Excellent. As in: precise. Great Bass. Great Treble. Great midrange. But it did not always come together as a musical experience. Unless, of course, one doesn’t have a lot of experience with the real thing, and then it’s easy to think that you’re getting "everything." And again, someone whose diet is pop and rock is not going to hear  what the best dacs do. There is not a lot of harmonic information in the typical modern recording. It’s mostly fundamentals. So, for those who don’t care, that’s fine.

And your point is very valid.  

It is fair, I think, to say that our listening habits and musical tastes dictate the composition of our systems.

Yes, of course they do.

Tight as a knat's posterior. Any boom, timing issues, slop, overponderance or slowness is unacceptable. 

Tom

It is fair, I think, to say that our wallets dictate the composition of our systems.

@ghdprentice 

+1 

‘“non-tight bass” audio performance subwoofers are responsible for many people disliking them in 2-channel audio, car audio, and home theatre if it  calls attention to the system and is the cause of the dissatisfaction problems.

In two-channel audio systems, poor choice subwoofers have fully earned a bad reputation. They usually suck when it’s boomy, muddy, and out of control with an obnoxious bass overhang that lingers so long as to blur most of the musical information up until the next bass note is struck.

We all know outright irritating subwoofer experiences, whether it’s from

(a) a nearby car thumping so loud that it appears to be bouncing up off the road,, or,

b) a home theatre system with such overblown (ergo, anything-but “tight” ); bass that causes you to start feeling nauseous part way through the movie

The tighter the better with many things including bass. 

As @noromance eluded to in the first post...."accurate".

I've always disliked the audiophile adjective "tight" when referring to explaning bass.

I'd add "natural", "organic", "well defined".

Eh, kind of the unspoken aspect or requirement, but agreed. If we are to go there, then please allow me to add "Full range". 

Tom