Bass at your ears? (Bass imaging)


This song 'James Blake - Limit to your love' has this weird bass that kicks in at about 1:00 into it. Now I have heard this song on a few speakers and it sounded great but when I heard it on the magico m2 I could literally hear the bass right at my ears as if I was wearing heapdhones. It was such a strange sensation. Is this indicative of the m2s incredible imaging capability or is this something else? This was in an irregularly shaped room with a big hallway to one side and hardly any treatment.
smodtactical
This is "wobble bass", a techique that comes out of dubstep, where the volume of a bass tone is modified with the beat. Wikipedia has a good explanation.

There are other songs on this album where James states specifically he was looking to create a claustraphobic effect. Perhaps the same applies here.

Interestingly I've heard this song used by Magico on two different occassions at Axpona, so clearly they think their speakers show well here. 

I use this song for my own sub setup because when its wrong you definitely have the experience of the Helmholtz effect inside a csr with one window cracked open. When its right (for me) you hear and feel the volume differential but it isnt fluttering your eadrums, and you do not lose any of the attack or decay of the concurrent drum line.
^^^^
thx for that post.

Wobble Bass Effect.

Like I said here yesterday further up in the thread.
Sounds like headphones on my current project speakers.
these ones. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bWczGnLKZkZoKiMz5

No issues with the eardrums. Synthesizer produced coming from the source material.

If the speakers have large drivers with large cabinets, and are fairly efficient, the effect can be produced at quite low db levels with the speakers in near field, in a large room - room acoustics do not need to come into play. fwiw - This confirms to me it was the source material and,
also don't see why this is such a big deal - as far as audio shows go.  

Also, superbly clean bass is qualitatively much different to the ears than even good bass.


Here in Seattle superbly clean bass is no longer an option. It is completely sterilized. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
The bassline on that recording is a form of "wobble bass", which in and of itself does not explain the "claustrophobic" sensation. The size of the acoustic space is conveyed by the reverberation. A small space is conveyed by rapid onset and rapid decay of the reverberation.

If you’ve ever watched a scene where someone is in a box or buried alive and you can hear/feel how claustrophobic the tiny space is, it’s because that spatial information is on the recording.

Kudos to Magico for their speakers reproducing this effect spookily well, but they are not necessarily unique in their ability to do so.

Duke