Bass rant


Does anyone else surmise that the minions weaned on exaggerated THX sound in sticky floored cineplex's, sold on window-shaking subwoofers in their motor vehicles, and subjected to hearing loss in loud stadium concerts - might have trouble understanding what constitutes an accurate bass guitar tone/timbre/volume? I read post after post on this and other forums of those decrying their systems lack of bass. While I grew up listening to a lot of live music in nightclubs and stadiums from Bobby Short at The Carlyle, to Yo Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble, to John Fogerty at The Greek Theater, I believe I can differentiate the realism of an upright bass and one unnaturally amped (acoustic or electric), and yet I cannot understand all the bleeding over of the home theater systems exaggerated bass sound into many dedicated audiophile sound systems. Please educate me.
byegolly

Showing 4 responses by macrojack

The laws of physics are strictly enforced. I tried every short cut that was offered before I ultimately wound up with 15 woofers in 5 cubic foot ported enclosures. This approach has provided me with a very realistic bass that reaches all the way down to 50 hz. before it rolls off rather steeply.

The reason I am willing to accept a lower limit of 50 hz. has to do with trading quantity for quality.
As I have said many times before, once home theater became popular, the emphasis in audio shifted from music to sound effects. Doesn't that explain what's going on?

Marakanetz - If you had used your Stereophile test CD, you could have determined the ladies' resonant frequency. Would've been interesting to find out if they are all tuned to the same pitch.
Ethanh - You won't have to pony up much because older designs that feature the design characteristics you outline are not much in demand. I used an old pair of JBL L-200 speakers as my woofer section. These can be found for $1000 to $1200 per pair and are the basis for a great system. If you do your homework and find some good horns with compression drivers for the top, you will be most of the way there. Look into it.
It speaks to our modern business plan. Nobody is trying to make a better mousetrap. The focus is on making a better selling mousetrap. The American consumer has conditioned American manufacturers to believe that they needn't make it better --- all they have to do is convince us that they made it better.

And among our population there is little ability to evaluate quality. Our mentality is first and foremost quantitative. A woofer is better than no woofer and a cheaper woofer is better than an expensive one. You can get twenty cheap ones for what a good one will set you back.