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Is bass the most important frequency band?

One thing I’ve noticed when upgrading my audio system is that when I have really good bass, I’m happy. If the bass is top notch, I can overlook less-than-stellar treble or so-so midrange. The opposite does not seem to be true. Sure, I can get tremendous enjoyment out of a high-fidelity playback of a flute or other instrument that doesn’t have much bass impact, but when I switch to a track that has some slam, if my sub/woofers don’t perform, I’m left wanting, and I am inclined to change the track. When my subwoofer game is top notch, there is something extremely pleasing about tight, powerful, and accurate bass response that easily puts a smile on my face and lifts my mood in a matter of seconds. Maybe it all boils down to the fact that bass frequencies are heard AND felt and the inclusion of another sense (touch/feeling) gives bass a competitive edge over midrange and treble. I am not talking about loud bass (although that can be really fun and has its place), but the type of bass that gives you a sense of a kick drum’s size or allows for the double bass to reach out and vibrate the room and your body. I propose to you that bass and sub-bass should be optimized first and foremost, followed by treble and midrange in order to maximize enjoyment. Thoughts?
mkgus

Showing 1 response by lemonhaze

lemonhaze
437 posts
 
OP, all frequencies are important as that is what constitutes music and your proposition that bass should be optimised is solid. Achieving optimal bass is the quest and is what stymies the vast majority of enthusiasts mainly because of a lack of understanding and also because they have never been in the presence of quality bass reproduction.

Good bass needs to be flat and decay by a certain amount within a given time frame known as T60 and this time is obtainable from freely available sources and depends on the volume of your listening room. This is easy and inexpensive to perform. Once you see the plots of your room you can introduce corrective measures which consist of bass traps and adding subs as in a DBA. Doing one or the other will make very big improvements, doing both is truly optimum. It's WOW.

As has been mentioned mid frequencies are very important as this is where most of the music lies but then so are high frequencies which provide brilliance and spatial clues and now to bring them all together to get...music.

Let me also point out that good bass improves the mids and tops and adding a supertweeter improves everything.
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