Why the fascination with subwoofers?

@rodman99999 used the term "tight" in regard to a subject near and dear to my heart, that of musical cohesion within the rhythm section of a band. That is one of the foremost criteria in assessing the quality of that section, and his use of the term tight in this instance was in regard to musical tightness, not bass tightness in a purely audio sense. However, the bass quality of a woofer or subwoofer can and does also effect the perceived "tightness" of a rhythm section.

One point about Ralph’s argument regarding bass tightness can be discussed in the terms speaker designers use: a woofer can be critically damped (0.7), over-damped (a lower number), or under-damped (a higher number). A designer who wants to get more perceived bass out of his speaker will under-damp it---at the cost of bass "looseness", while a designer who intends for his loudspeaker to be paired with a subwoofer may over-damp his speaker, knowing that the bass quantity sacrificed to achieve a higher bass quality will be compensated for by the sub.

An over-damped woofer may not reproduce all the timbre, tone, and resonance produced by a, say, upright bass, as the over-damping will mute those qualities. An under-damped one may produce lots of bass quantity, but it’s lack of bass quality may result in the loss of the touch and timing of the bass player (and the drummer's playing of his bass drum). That’s why the best speaker designers aim for the critically damped figure of 0.7, the optimum compromise.

@clio09, I think of bass reproduction in terms of leanness vs. plumpness. I’ve worked some with upright bass players, so have heard them up close in all kinds of acoustic environments. I have also heard them from the audience side, both unmic’ed and mic’ed. The fault I hear in it’s reproduction is that of making it sound too "round", not as "stringy" and "sinewy" as it sounds live. In person, an acoustic bass sounds like it is part of the string family in an orchestra, not that different from a cello, just playing lower notes.

As for electric bass, I use the sound heard by the playing of bassists in my own situations (Fender of course---Precision, Jazz, and Telecaster basses, but also Gibson, Guild, Danelectro/Silvertone, Hofner, and even the awful Rickenbacker ;-) as a reference, but also that of Joey Spampinato (NRBQ)---whom I have heard up close in a small club (The Roxy in L.A.), and John Entwistle (The Who), playing his original Precision at The Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco. Spampinato has the ability to make his Silvertone sound like an upright, coolest thing I’ve ever heard! Entwistle had the most massive bass sound I’ve ever heard (awesome!), with lots of staccato attack, but it was still not "fat". He was a GREAT bassist! I sure would have liked to see and hear James Jamerson live.

Brian Ding of Rythmik and Danny Richie of GR Research speak of a woofers ability to stop quickly when the signal ends as a major requirement for good bass reproduction; the lack of "overhang". There is also "overshoot"---the woofer traveling just a little past where it "should", smearing the bass in terms of it’s transient/temporal characteristic That’s as good an explanation as I’ve heard.

But all the above is about the reproduction of the bass as an instrument. In regard to over all bass balance in home hi-fi systems, rarely do I hear reproduced music with the bass weight and heft I hear at live music performances. Live music is much more "physical" than is reproduced, that physicality mostly low frequency in nature. A large part of that has to do with SPL, but also the size of the rooms music is performed in. Large venues support longer wavelengths (lower frequencies) than do smaller ones, and sound very different from our listening rooms. The final frontier in music reproduction!