Big bass in small room - utopia?

[davedotco]

Very interesting, but only part of the story.

With the exception of church organ or electronic music, bass notes are rich in harmonics and the lowest fundamentals play only a very small part in defining what we hear. For jazz, rock and popular music of all kinds the octave 35-70hz contributes little to the musical experience, sure some recordings have more in that region than others but it is rarely of any great consequence..

I mentioned earlier, non experts invariably think bass notes are deeper than they actually are and in real music there is little of any consequence below about 82 hz, bottom E on a guitar or E2 on a piano. Some instruments can go deeper, but they rarely do and even then, the contribution of the fundamental is only a small part of whole texture of the note.

In a difficult room such as the OPs 3 x 3 meter space the primary resonance is going to be around 85 - 90hz, putting any speaker close to a wall is going to drive these frequencies to excess, bass trapping in a room that size is impractical and good eq, a variable Q parametric to 'notch out' the resonant frequency is hard to come by in the hi-fi world.

The only practical way to produce tight punchy bass in such a space is to move both the speakers and the listener well out into the centre of the room, the speakers one third of the way down the room and the listener close to the center. That will work, though it is propable unacceptable domestically.

Check out these measurements:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/629542-low-frequency-response-rap-pop-rock-music.html

My take on it is that there is a significant amount of content below 70hz on most of the recordings I listen to. And on some recordings, such as Lady Ga Ga Born this Way, theres more content at 30 hz than there is at any other single frequnecy in the spectrum. If I have a system that filters out the signal from 70hz downwards then that is not very good fidelity. And most importantly of all, I can easily hear the difference between my least extended speakers and my most extended, with me having a big preference for my most extended speakers - especially when they're in a well furnished room.

Some speakers which produce relatively tight punchy bass are designed to be used within 2 inches of the corners of the room. Which I think is sensible speaker design. Something that works with the room enclosure instead of fighting against it.

All very interesting but I did say most music and I did specifically not include 'electronic' music, which is what those graphs represent. The production values for music of that style demands massive bass output for reproduction on 'club' sound systems, Beats headphones and the like.

I do not consider this as anything other than sound effects, and they can be whatever you like, I had assumed that we were talking about real music played on real instruments and reproduced with a degree of accuracy, though this is clearly not the case. (sorry if that sounds pompous, it's hard to say what I mean any other way)

If recordings such as those given in your example are used as a reference, then you are absolutely correct and I concede the point, I am just happy that I do not have to listen to it on my system. I am old fashined and reactionary enough to still think that hi-fi equipment is for the reproduction of real music with a degree of fidelity to an actual performance, I have avoided 'manufactured' pop music for very many years and I guess I sometimes forget how pervasive it is, even, apparently among hi-fi enthusists.

Stepping back slightly, filtering the bass below 70 hz is something that is applied to vinyl recordings at the cutting stage, this is still routinely the case with non audiophile recordings, but does not usually apply to digital releases.