frequency range for instrument vs speaker

Drew, thanks for your information. I certainly don't disagree that giving bass extension can help to improve midbass performance as well. However, I don't think that it would answer my question regarding playing music that contains fundamentals that are only 50Hz or above as to what kind of sound, information or contents those recording contains that are below 50Hz? I am not trying to pick on recording studio, sound engineer regarding equalization or anything like that but actually try to understand more about what I hear.

06-18-12: Suteetat
Drew, thanks for your information. I certainly don't disagree that giving bass extension can help to improve midbass performance as well. However, I don't think that it would answer my question regarding playing music that contains fundamentals that are only 50Hz or above as to what kind of sound, information or contents those recording contains that are below 50Hz?

You make a good point that if speakers are strong, linear, and honest down to 40 Hz (not 50--it's just not low enough), you are going to hear most of the music and the system will come across as having excellent bass. However, a great number of speakers actually start rolling off around 100 Hz and have pooped out around 50-60 Hz and they are definitely missing something. Even augmenting such a system with a sub that itself rolls off at 36 Hz will make a positive and noticeable difference.

Furthermore, not all kick drums' fundamental tone is around 50 Hz; it depends on the drum size and the tuning. My vintage Slingerland 14"x22" has a lower thump than that, and many kick drums today are much larger, like 20"x24". Even the fundamental on a snare drum can provide a workout for a good woofer.

Another thing: the low E of a 4-string electric bass is around 42Hz, but many rock/pop bass players use a 5-string, whose lowest note is about 32 Hz. It's just one whole note above the bottom A of a standard piano. If you have a system that's truly flat to 40 Hz it'll sound strong on rock and pop, but if it's flat to 30 Hz you'll hear the difference on many recordings, especially later ones.

For me, having a flat response down to at least 30hz is also for hearing the space the music was recorded in. I like listening to a lot of live recorded jazz tracks and such and find the low bass replays the resonance of the particular room of the performance. i.e, one live jazz album I have sounds as if it was played in a venue in a high rise building on a windy day. There is just that low frequency resonance that you get in such a building. Or I was once listening to a track of a choir in an old large church and there must of been a truck passing the road outside the church. It had that unique sound of outside traffic noise passing through the thick stone walls of an old church.

Maybe some people think such sounds will subtract from the music... but to me it adds to the sense of 'being there'. And individual tracks have their unique character that regard.

Johnnyb, thanks for your information. That's exactly the kind of info I am looking for. Any idea how low those bigger kick drum can go down to? I also have not been able to find much information about the big bass drum that are used in some classical music such as Verdi's Requiem, Stravinsky's Firebird as far as their frequency is concerned.

There is an audio frequency chart linked in another thread under speakers. It shows the frequency range of musical instruments. It is under the thread titled, " Thoughts from THE Show, is $29k the new $10k?".