What is Tight Bass?

I usually think of tight bass as a quality of rock and roll music.  Meaning impactful, and realistic to the kick drum in particular.

GOOD bass however is broader than rock'n'roll.  This is bass that is:

• Balanced with the midrange and treble
• Uncompressed
• Low distortion
• Lacking in noticeable room modes

tight bass implies good control and damping which implies a good match between amplifier and speaker

Tight bass is an audiophile term that I never heard used in all my years working as a musician or in the studios. I think audiophiles use it to mean that you can differentiate the pitches of the bass instrument as opposed to a general rumble of low notes. Keep in mind that many people prefer the general rumble, as in car radios and juke boxes.  Gives the sound a comfortable cushion and warmth that is pleasing to the ear. 

I perceive it as articulate bass, the opposite of one note, overly resonant bass. Loose resonant bass is real no no for me, once I hear it in system, can never unhear. Also, recording dependent.

@chayro 

Agreed mostly. I too am a musician (drummer). I never heard a lot of things put forth in the music world which is prevalent among audiophiles. I always took "tight bass" as a bass line that is quick & sharp. I never heard a bass guitar sound that way except on some funk. I was never able to get good bass from the audiophile SS amps. It was a tube amp which showed me proper sounding bass. Yet, I had always heard that SS was better. It is not.

the bass is stronger. maybe more sharp sounding. not sloppy. the opposite of that. clear and with nice resolution.

Here is the short answer, worth every minute of the hour and a half.

Keep in mind that many people prefer the general rumble, as in car radios and juke boxes.  Gives the sound a comfortable cushion and warmth that is pleasing to the ear. 

If you get the bass too tight, the music will sound too lean. 

Controlling the woofer after it has been put in motion by the signal. No extra bass caused by improper 'loose' movement after the signal.

i.e. My vintage 15" woofers, Electrovoice 15W's weigh 37 lbs each, very strong spider, rigid magnet enclosure, and a 5-1/4 lb Alnico Magnet to push/pull 'tightly' control the cone.

you could have an 18" woofer with a less strong spider and less powerful magnet, but longer throw, i.e. move more air, more bass (the iron law), but it would NOT be tight bass.

Somewhat anachronistic term for well damped, not ringy or boomy etc. Fairly intuitive. Nothing more than that. The bass player for Blood, Sweat & Tears described the Altec 421a as ’tight’ in an ad on the back cover of Guitar Player in 1969, e.g. I recall AR loudspeakers being described that way occasionally, as far as hi-fi goes.

@artemus_5  You are the first person I've heard say tube amps produce better bass. I think I agree with that. I thought I must be wrong because EVERY review says SS produce great bass and tubes do midrange and vocals better. So many audiophile facts that I don't agree with.

Audiophiles' desire is that bass should have articulation, energy, speed delivery, and coherence. This desire is erroneously given the name of  "tight bass", although for legitimate reason: the main barrier to good bass was looseness, lack of definition and energy in the past.

Now, when we correct the lack of energy, definition, speed and dynamics, then we get good bass. This is also experienced as the bass "tightening" as audiophiles say. However, the "tightning" is an improvement only to a certain degree, after a point it becomes just as much a coloration to sound as the lack of focus is.

Good bass has articulation, energy, speed and coherence. Yet, it is neither overly tight, nor overly loose. A common problem with audio systems is / was their inability to reproduce clean and coherent bass, and people (audiophiles) summed this up as "loose" or "colored" bass. However, most audiophiles do not realize that coloring applies to BOTH ends of the palette: bass can be colored either to be too loose, or to be too tight. Over thight bass is just as colored as overly loose bass.

My observations tell me that the fascination with overly "tight" bass arose from people using studio recordings as reference, where the hall acoustics information is lost, resulting in an overly dry, sharp bass rendering. To me that kind of bass is unacceptable, as it is missing a lot of the textural information, the three dimensionality, and reaches a point where it blends the clipping/distortion characteristics of the system. (Which occur much, much before audiophiles realize it.)

With over-tight bass you are also missing out much of the technique of the player. In the case of drums, the systems described as having "very tight" bass render the drums as if the drummer was very very strong, punches the set with double impact, but his technique is missing out a LOT. Basically, we get a mediocre drummer with very strong arms, dominating the band and the midbass. The other end of the spectrum (described as loose bass) describes a situation where the drummer is weak, there's no energy in his snaps and kicks, the tone is smeared, and we can't focus on the technique either - I get no information whether the drummer has good or bad technique.

The truth lies in between: bass with proper energy delivery, proper timing, textural definition, proper dynamic range.

Focusing on "tightness" to me is turning your system into a sharpness filter, coloring the sound, removing you from high fidelity.

@artemus_5 @bubba12

Yes, I was shocked and perplexed when I first moved from a good ss (Pass x350) to a tubed Audio Research Reference 160s. Two things immediately struck me… what a big reduction of slam… and how much better and more articulate the bass was… and well, the Pass is never going back into my system.

I was very perplexed. The Pass was so much thinner across the audio spectrum (particularly near the bass) but very very fast at delivering bass. My conclusion was that the slam was very artificial, like turning up the contrast too much on a photograph.. The contrast between the thin midrange and huge bump in bass. The Audio Research was slower (like natural… not sluggish) and amazingly detailed… differentiating all the nuances of the bass… not just a single thump.

+1 pesky, elliott, realthing - It has to do with the control of the woofer, higher damping factor is a major player in this. It does not have to do with how low a frequency the amp/driver will produce. If you want the deepest bass, it comes from a SS amplifier as tube amps just don't go down ultra-low. The limitation in deep bass is the output transformers in most tube amps. The only exception I've heard is David Berning tube amplifiers, with no output transformer. Have fun!

@realworldaudio, I’ll mildly object to be called dumb, but perception of individuals kinda gets lost in the stew.....😏

As one who runs amt’s, it’s a snap to employ a sub for the bottom ’boom’, but hard to source a mid-bass>upper bass (or low mid) that can keep pace yet keep the ’slam’ at bay with more apropos levels...

Varies with the program played, but... smaller drivers with SS equipment seem to work best, as you note, in this range.
And one can tweak the ’slam’ to taste; eq in my religion is not a sin. :)

Regards, J

@asvjerry Hello J, I am a little surprised by your reaction, esp as I do not know who you are. I did not call, nor presume anyone dumb. I'm sorry if I have offended you or anyone: in my two posts above I have expressed positives and negatives for BOTH technologies (tube & SS). Forum members, if you thought that I was out of line in my posts please let me know.

J, you have described a situation that takes exploration to a very different perspective than the one @ghdprentice and I were exploring in our posts. When we employ a sub, we can alter the low end response to almost any degree, so that makes tube vs solid state issue regarding slam and tightness quite irrelevant as adding a sub and playing with levels and energy delivery can be done with both technologies. 

Kind regards,

Janos

What does a kick drum sound like? What does an electric guitar sound like?

There is accurate bass then there is everything else and all of us including myself are listening to everything else.

Bass is the hardest part of the audio spectrum to get right. Everything wants to resonate at bass frequencies, rooms interfere, distortion in drivers increases dramatically and getting drivers and electronics to put out realistic levels below 40 Hz is difficult and expensive. 

I use an unamplified upright bass to judge accuracy. Still, each one sounds different. Less is more. Bass tends to get a lot of garbage added to it like enclosure resonance. Below 40 Hz it is more about feeling than hearing. You have to learn to listen to what you are feeling. A good example is listen to computer speakers. You hear harmonics of bass tones which will give you the bass line but you feel absolutely nothing. Bass is very powerful. When you get a chance get as close as you can to an upright bass. It is not all that loud but the lowest notes will shake your gut. That is what you want to get out of your system. Good luck, you'll need it. 

@ghdprentice

Yes, I was shocked and perplexed when I first moved from a good ss (Pass x350) to a tubed Audio Research Reference 160s. Two things immediately struck me… what a big reduction of slam… and how much better and more articulate the bass was… and well, the Pass is never going back into my system.

Imagine my surprise when I bought an inexpensive Bob Latino ST-70 just to dip my foot into the tube world and finding that it bested my SS amp (CJ 2500A). I sold the Cj and never looked back.

@realworldaudio

the main barrier to good bass was looseness,...

Solid state amplifiers give a boost to midbass, and have relatively lean deep bass, upper bass, and very thin midrange, and then a shrill top end.

So many good points that its hard to point out just one. But your description of the modern SS amp is spot on to my experience.I first noticed it in the late 80’s when I bought a Luxman R115 to replace my Harmon Kardon 730. I disliked the Lux and sold it & got the 730 back in service. But you are right about early amp’s bass being very loose. I never heard a Pioneer that didn’t have flabby bass.

In 2000, I started putting together a better system but never found a SS amp that was satisfactory. It was an inexpensive tube amp that gave me back the bass line I had been seeking.

FWIW, I am making my judgements here based on years of playing drums and having the bass amp right next to me I also spent many years in the clubs & festivals listening to amplified and unamplified. music. Bass is not sharp, quick or tight. Bass is more rounded with body and a slight amount of sustain which I call overhang. The exception is Funk where the bass player snaps and slaps the strings. But it is a technique used and not its natural sound.

@mijostyn 

Bass is the hardest part of the audio spectrum to get right.

That is my opinion also. maybe because so much of the music rides on the bass

@realworldaudio ..Janos, no offense taken just a mild rebuke made over...

"...not because they are dumb and do not recognize slam, but because the slam is overdone."

One persons' slam can be another's' restraint in the world of wham, bam, and making the orchestra seats deaf for a week. ;) *L*

'Slam' may be mixed into the final cut sent to a cutter for an LP, or just turned loose into the CDs' or streams.  What one is faced with, tube or SS, is how one reacts and responds with their selection of speakers and the 'up stream' devices one owns or wants to the replicate that in their spaces....

'Flabby bass' may be the intent of the player involved, due to the type and style of the music played, which is something I try to keep in mind upon a listen.  Certain styles have an 'approach' that, unless you know the player(s) involved begs a mind-reading skill I gave up years ago....and I'm kidding here. *G*

"Bass is the hardest part of the audio spectrum to get right." per @artemus_5 ...

... and I'll agree with that comment, SS or tubes (the latter of which I grew up with....and grew away from...).  It's possible now to mimic 'tube w/SS' and the reverse, the sharp-eared can discern the difference...along with other discrepancies I can, can't, or ignore....

So much of what we desire in our 'personal audio experience' is tied up in what we expect to hear and/or want to, imho...  Tube vs. SS are basically responding much the same (since electron flow is roughly speed of light, +/-), it's the way a particular type of 'valve' (glowing elements in glass vs. hot silicone with 'amendments') effect what's flowing through them.

I prefer upping a processors' speed and peripheral's to rolling tubes....which is my excuse and I'll stick with it. ;) 

Yes, a different perspective.  (...joking now..)  I'm sure you've noticed there's a lot of that going on here...*L*

Viva the differences, frankly....but...when I have the opportunity to listen to someone else's system, or an item at a dealer...

A grain of salt may not be enough, and usually a variety of other spices may help.

Mid-lag is a concern of mine; 'slam' I determine with dB personally.
If it exists at high levels, it ought to be noticeable at low ones'.

..at least the RTA's will notice...;)

Again, no offense taken...*G*

(Don't own a gun, but have access to a Real fencing foil....*L*...other than this keyboard.... :)...)

...mmm....a kick drum goes *boom*....pretty much a one note pony...

It's all that goes on 'twixt it (as it existed and went 'boom' ) and your ears is what we BBQ here....*G*

Like yours blood rare or crisp? 😏👍

@realworldaudio

Thank you for that great explanation of what I have observed. Makes sense… particularly with double bass and other similar sounds… those are so startlingly differentiated and wonderful to hear once I added my tube amp.

It is very gratifying to continue to delve deeper into subjects after fifty years of continuous learning. 

@asvjerry Hi J, I hoped that it was clear that I protested against people being called dumb. Should be pretty obvious from my wording.. or so I thought, apparently wrongly. My humble apologies. Thank you for pointing it out!

I am also upset, just like you that people are called dumb over matters, that's why I mentioned it the way I did as people who prefer linear bass response are called dumb and deaf all the time. 

I'm sad it backfired, but lesson learned. Thank you for teaching me to be more prudent!

Cheers,

Janos

@realworldaudio ..Janos, no offense taken just a mild rebuke made over...

"...not because they are dumb and do not recognize slam, but because the slam is overdone."

Deal, Janos...Many a slip 'twixt brain stem and fingertips.... :)  And clarity in forums is a moving target that's hard to maintain anyway. *S*  No harm, no issue, no problem....

'Linear response', over any frequency band imo, is really only possible with test tones or sweeps.  Music is generally multiple instruments with vocals or no in constant states of 'flux', so any linearity is the status of the speakers' ability to track a sine or square wave accurately enough so that complex waveforms as music are reproduced in an acceptable level of accuracy befitting the input....*whew*

How that integrates with a musical waveform 'accurately enough' is du jour....doing it better and above is the hard trick.

Cheery enough for now, J

@asvjerry , that is exactly right. The best way to see what your system is doing is to run a sine sweep and measure the results with a calibrated microphone. $300 will get you the mic and the program. If you do not do this you have no idea what you are listening too and all of you will be aghast when you measure your system.

There is no tube amp that can produce accurate bass below 40 Hz. The out stage impedance is just too high to control a woofer never mind a big inductive subwoofer. Class A SS amps with very low output stage impedance is what you want. Parasound JC 1+s are an excellent example. Pass XA200.8s are another. Above subwoofer frequencies or 100 Hz and above tube amps are fine if you like them. The only ones I personally like Atma-Sphere MA2s. They are a great match for my speakers according to many people. I also like supporting hand made in America. Watch this! http://www.atma-sphere.com/en/index.html  

@asvjerry Hi J, you have a lot of good things going on, and a sound path that you walk. Indeed, that is the beauty of audio, that there are so many choices and so many roads. I think the road you picked is one that can work extremely well, and your enthusiasm proves that you are reaping the benefits. I am glad to learn from you, and our fellow audiophiles who post here. To infinity and beyond! ;

Cheers,

Janos

@mijostyn , *L* It’s nice to right, even if the source is suspect...;) *L*

Square wave sweeps seem to be accomplished by that which is deemed ’dry’ or ’too crisp’, although I tend towards that over ’warm’. This seems to fuel the ’tube vs. ss’ debate, which we ought to sidestep at this junction.... That gets flogged on a regular basis ’elsewhere’ here @ AG, and needs no replay here...🤞.

I’ve the calibrated mic already, and a batch of the gratis programs available and downloaded already, so the means and method are in place. ;)

Being able to ’see’ what’s ’line input’ contrasted to ’room response’ is instructive, esp. in my diy Walsh endeavors....it’s silly to expect them to sink to 20 hz. without ’argument’, and they weren’t meant to, either...

And that’s why I hand it off to a sub....and concentrate on what’s above 100ish hz.

I’d be happy to run a tube amp in lieu of my ss amp to hear the contrast involved, but that’s not in my dance card currently (pun not intended...). I’ll have to wait for infamy to be able to do that under duress....and yes, I’m teasing. *G*

@realworldaudio, thanks for your kind comments, and I’ve been committed to this line of irrationality for over a decade now....;)

I’ve achieved a sort of ’presence’, I guess:

https://www.google.com/search?q=diy+walsh+speakers&oq=&aqs=chrome.1.69i59i450l8.781244161j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

...and I appear 6x in the ’images’ link, which I think for a diy foray gives me some sort of odd gravitas on the subject....and bearing in mind the vid is 7ish yrs. old and shot with a ’point & shoot’ and a lousy mono mic in it...

What you see & hear is not current, no....but the concept is still under ’revisions’...
My goal is to put the soloist within reach, in a psychoacoustic fashion.

It does require a surround arrangement, but trying to keep it inobtrusive and subtle in a physical presence in one’s space, with a nod towards room treatments that don’t suggest ’recording facility’ treatments in an extreme.

It works, but I fried one of four prototypes in the process. Been working on improvements in the meanwhile to prevent that from occurring again.... ;)

As an omni/dipole enthusiast, and the rise of 5.1 & 7.1 in HT in general, I feel that omnis’ need to be developed and become a real ’player’ beyond what is currently available....
And I’m committed to try in my limited means to give it a go..."...not that it is easy, but because it is hard." to quote JFK, once upon....

*L* Don Quixote had the same problem, but my windmills are smaller and I lack a Sancho as a wingman....;)

"To infinity and beyond!" *L* Not on my bucket list...infinity is a very long time, and I’d doubt sanity would last that long within me... But a good cheer for my team of one....;) Thanks....

Regards to you both, I remain a J in process...

A dichotomy on amplifiers for good bass?  'Tight' if you like, but I prefer accurate, or true to the live event.

Some suggest only tube amps supply bass that reproduces the live event well.

Others that only solid state amps have the raw power required.

May I suggest the reconciliation is in the power supplies.  All accurate bass reproduction needs very stiff power supplies that allow the amp to control big woofers rigidly.  The best amps of every type have big power supplies.  When I switch on my big Krells the houselights dim as the huge capacitors suck juice from the wall.  Big ARs have massive transformers.

By the way OP, you mention electrostatic.

Sorry, you won't get any bass below 50Hz from an electrostatic, even though they're great at all points above. 

Many start to roll off at 80-90Hz.

Good speaker placement in a good room will give you tight bass. This is not hyperbole. 

I already had what I thought was good, tight bass and moved furniture around and the difference was remarkable.

I learned this back when I had Salk Song towers with double 5" woofers. I thought the bass could not get tighter or deeper from 5" woofers. They sounded like 10"-12" woofers after 6 months of 'exploiting' my rooms potential. No professional sound treatment was used...just a measuring tape. Subwoofer was put in storage.

Think of it like looking through a camera lens and believing what you see as pretty good. Then somone activates the autofocus and you realize what clarity really is. 

You're listening to speakers 'through' your room.

@clearthinker 1+. Having run large ESLs for decades not only do they hate making low bass (they will do it in a lumpy fashion) but it hampers them everywhere else increasing distortion and killing headroom. You are absolutely right about big power supplies but to that you have to add low impedance output stages or in other terms, a high damping factor to control a large subwoofer driver. A tube amp can have the power supply but unfortunately not the output stage. I had Krell KMA 100s for 20 years and they did make great bass and great everything else for that matter. I would still have them if one hadn't burned out. They gave me a love affair with Class A amps that I can not get away from. I understand why many love tube amps. I am considering buying a pair but, there are SS amps that will provide the same shimmer and effortlessness. The ones that I have heard are all Class A and I do not think this is psychological.  

@sandthemall , a good room and proper placement are essential for good bass but there are other factors that have to be considered to get the job done which is why achieving sota results are so difficult. This is compounded further by the use of subwoofers. Bass has a lot of energy. An explosion is a low frequency pulse. In medicine we use low frequency pulses to break up kidney stones. Put on a 30 Hz test tone and turn the volume up. Listen to your whole house rattle. This energy creates a lot of spurious noise which in simple terms is distortion. It starts with the enclosure the driver is in then multiplies with each surface and loose item. Totally accurate bass is something you can only dream of.

@mijostyn 

I am convinced you are utterly correct about the superior SQ of pure Class A.  I will never leave it.

My Krells are KRS 200s, the last reference before Krell were shamed into abandoning Class A because of the power consumption.  Mine draw more than 1kW per side continuous.  They are one of the very rare early pairs that were converted to deliver 400w/side and mainly suppied to Krell agents (where I got mine).  They are getting on for 40 years old now and I had them entirely refurbished (mainly caps) in 2011.  I also have a KSA 50 in another system - Krell's first product and glorious it is too.  That one continues to emit signal (albeit increasingly distorted) for nearly 10 seconds after it is powered down.  That's what I call a power supply.

IMHO you could do a lot worse than go back to Krell monoblocks.  I see a pair like mine, recapped, for $12,500 today.  In view of Class B amps in $six figures, this must be the bargain of the last two centuries.  I paid £6,500 in 1992.  List in the mid-80s was about £26,000 I seem to recall.  They are often cheaper than £12,500 but I paid £3,600 to refurb mine.

This is an interesting read.

"tight bass"

good luck with that. On the finest it is pretty convincing. To my ears, still a visceral level that can’t be reproduced. It is not about being LOUD.

Meanwhile, as this thread figures out what "tight bass is and how to get it...

Get up in that groove...

I am all about the effect of ports or sealed speaker construction as well as amplification, but the room resonance is the biggest deal of all. Not just by way of speaker/subwoofer placement, but whatever can be done to flatten the frequency and decay response will provide tight bass. 

Krell amps produce great bass because the power supply is so large, the damping factor isn't that high.

@ ohlala Bingo!

Bass traps for reducing bass anomalies and ringing due to large parallel surfaces (ceiling/floor is usually the first offender (and often shortest distance)) in most domestic settings has the largest effect in “tighter bass” IME.

Boundary interference is enemy No 1 for tight bass.

As for bass being “too tight” …well I’ve never heard that.

@tablejockey ...great example...👍.  As for tighten'd up, I like some of riffs that play with the 'qualities' of a bass line's notes... house and edm, other oddities.

Room resonance is just your shower writ Large(r)...

Next abode, I'm pondering running a test on the empty space.
Know upfront what you're faced with.
Move the bulky things in, run it again.
See what happened, and keep that in mind.

Only get one shot @ this sort of thing; got means 'n method.

Thanks to all for triggering that thought....*S*

Standing in closer proximity to an upright bass playing spells everything most any hifi speaker can’t reproduce. At one point I walked around an upright bass on a theater stage during a rehearsal, and in conjunction what I’ve heard at quite a few live concerts was struck by the sheer physical, resonating fullness and immersive and harmonically rich presence it produced. This wasn’t "tightness" but more like the very opposite, and if a speaker was actually able to faithfully reproduce it I’m quite most would claim it to be loose, underdamped bass, when in fact this is what it can sound like for real.

I vital aspect here is the accompanying physicality, which most domestic speakers simply cannot come close to replicating, let alone effortlessly. Indeed, "fullness" for it to be felt fairly authentic with an instrument like an upright bass requires lots of displacement and headroom, and therefore it’s not a scalable feature of sound reproduction that one can successfully minimize. Perhaps some tube amps with their typically looser and warmer bass reproduction is a compensation of sorts for a lack of displacement in most speakers, that adds to the sensation of the lower frequencies being more authentic or natural sounding.

Many hifi setups strike me as sounding overdamped in the bass and yet at the same time too forced or "pulsating" even. With electronic non-acoustic music this mayn’t be a hindrance, in fact it can give the opposite impression and being an advantage, but with acoustic instruments (and environments) in particular many if not most simply fall short. To make matters worse lesser bass reproduction (be that for reasons of poor implementation or other) has a tendency to be gained down for it not to be too conspicuous, which further robs the overall sound of a foundation and fullness that should ideally be present.

Using an active setup myself (with prodigious displacement, high eff. and headroom) I’ve sometimes found the subs gain to be a little tricky depending on the material that is being played, though I’m fairly close now to a fixed setting that serves both one and the other genre, or one that may prioritize a range of music slightly more than others if not being a more balanced "middle road" setting. Classical music generally will happily take more sub gain for it to simply sound more real (mostly we’re only talking increments of 0.25dB’s here, so it’s close, but you’d be surprised to find them audible nonetheless), whereas this higher gain setting can potentially be detrimental to other, electronic genres. If one day I’m in a particular classical mood the subs gain may be increased a bit, but mostly it’s a one-setting-fits-most call.

I’m using a Belles SA30 Class A power amp (30 watts) for the frequency range ~600Hz on up by a 111dB sensitive horn/driver combo, and high power Class D variants for the spectrum below with a sensitivity rating here at 97 and 100dB respectively. Total output capacity sits at +2kW per channel - again, fully actively coupled, so no intervening passive cross-overs to compromise an amp's power delivery and control over the driver. That’s one of the charms with active configuration: use Class A where it matters the most and needs the less wattage, and the higher power amps where it’s more in demand.

@phusis , good for you. It sounds like you are working on a great system. There are no passive crossovers in my system either, wouldn't do it any other way. The best crossover is no crossover, passive at least. In my system there is only one digital crossover for the subwoofers. Otherwise, the Sound Labs operate full range, 100 Hz to 20 kHz.  

@clearthinker, there are times when I wished I had not sold those Krell amps. It was not until I got the JC1's that I got that magic back. The Atma-Sphere amps are also class A. There are so many reports of their effectiveness with my speakers, hard to ignore. I'm warming up to getting a pair of MA2s. The alternatives are the JC1+ and the Pass Labs Xs 300s. That is quite a stretch money wise. I'll use my current JC1s to drive the subwoofers.  Do the Pass amps add another $60K worth of sound quality over the other two amps? The problem is there is no way to know without trying them which is difficult to do. I am probably not going to make a $60K gamble. The Atma-Spheres are enough of a stretch.

Speaking of Atma-Sphere, it seems we have not heard from Ralph lately. I hope he is OK.

Tight bass is very simply: when the signal stops, so does the woofer (in fact, the entire loudspeaker). To not "stop on a dime" is to produce "overhang". In the world of loudspeaker design, there is the concept of "critically" damped woofers, as well as over-damped. A Google search will lead one to lots of literature on the subject.

IMHO "tight" bass refers to the system's ability to cleanly differentiate [in a mono mix] between a double bass plucking and an underdamped bass kick drum beating at the same time without mixing the two up to any degree. many systems can't do this as well as they ought. 

Tight bass relates to timing.

When a Bass note is exercised if it reverberates or cant musically keep up with the song its timing is off and it's called not tight...

You could add "tunefull" and you bring in timbre and definition as well.

NAIM = Tight Bass!

But be careful folks.  I tightened the bass so much the treble popped out and broke on the floor!

Well I thought that was funny but it's pretty early on a Saturday morning. 

Anyway, I have 3-series Maggies and those actually pump out beautifully tight bass, but I have found that to get the SPLs I prefer (music always sounded best to me in clubs), I use a swarm of 4 subs - 2 in the 10 inch range and 2 smaller ones.  Primarily RELs that are geared towards music. They are each dialed in such that you don't perceive sound coming from them, but together they subtly control the room SPL while reinforcing the bass from the Maggies. I find this method more all enveloping than the brute force of a single big sub.  Give it a shot! 

Well, I guess my best solution is to buy Forte iv pair, move them around until I get the bass I’m looking for, and get rid of my SVS sub. Rated at 38 on the low end, and from what I understand, these Klipsch speakers are darker than previous Fortes, and move the listener physically if you NEED it… but most enjoyable for most of us, is the detail we get at night, at volume where we actually LISTEN, “tightly”.

Do you not see any live music?  A symphony? A local jazz club, Folk music?  Really any live musical event, even a parade filled with marching bands.  If you haven't, then all the discussion on what tight bass is is frankly a waste of time without the live reference point (s).  The odds of exactly replicating it in a home is next to impossible but once you know what it sounds like, you'll know if you're getting there or not.

@mijostyn --

".. good for you. It sounds like you are working on a great system. There are no passive crossovers in my system either, wouldn't do it any other way. The best crossover is no crossover, passive at least. In my system there is only one digital crossover for the subwoofers. Otherwise, the Sound Labs operate full range, 100 Hz to 20 kHz."

Thank you. 

Paradoxically (in a sense), as you might know with your own floor-to-ceiling Sound Labs, very large speakers can present sound in such a way that makes the listener less aware of them actually being speakers - not least compared to smaller speakers, and despite their imposing physical stature and presence. Spatially, smaller 2-way "monitor" speakers in particular are generally thought of as being good at the "disappearing" act, but their small size is an easy give-away to the mind that this is nonetheless a reproduction. This is where physics, size and height matters and with it a range of "macro parameters" that are vital for the more adulterated sense of music just happening in front of the listener with proper scaling, dynamics and a sense of effortlessness, more than coming from a speaker per se. 

Stuff like that interests and intrigues me, and I deem trying to accommodate core physics in audio reproduction leagues more important than cultivating ad nauseam a smaller, direct radiating package to eventually cost a fortune; it's still a small package, just like a gazillion $$ dome tweeter is still a dome tweeter, a small woofer is still woofer, the same with passive cross-overs, etc. 

With the Sound Labs you've taken the "no (passive) cross-over" part a step further by having a large "full-range" ESL element covering from 100Hz up to the human hearing limit, with no frequency divide between different transducer elements in this entire range - that's of vital importance. The only filtering applied, I assume, is a high-pass filter cutting off the Sound Labs below 100Hz (or thereabouts) to your subs. 

While I can't afford the luxury of such an approach with a wideband, floor-to-ceiling ESL element (apart from being a horn guy), I've sought the solution of a driver element pairing that in dispersion characteristics matches very well at the single cross-over point in the main speakers, making the sound rather wideband as well as unrestricted in overall size and height. Lately a non-audiophile friend of mine remarked how my current, large auditorium pro cinema speakers were actually the most "discrete" sounding of all my speakers these last ~20 years he'd heard (which includes smaller 2-way stand-mounted speakers), despite their largest size of all the speakers I've owned, because they "didn't sound like speakers" with "music just existing in front of him." That's the kind of feedback from non-audiophiles I like and appreciate, because they're not "conditioned" to our vocabulary nor prejudiced with speaker types, price and their segment origin. 

@johnnycamp5 

Hi. With help from Acoustic Frontiers, I was able to flatten the bass response significantly by way of sealing the ports and subwoofer positioning. My main speakers were creating a 60Hz resonance on the vertical axis that a crossover almost eliminated. I just received several half-round diffusers/bass absorbers that are fairly broadband but are efficient at 60Hz. Looking forward to hearing what happens after I install them. I agree with you that overdamping bass without affecting the frequency response is an unusual problem.