Budget bookshelf system for acoustic bass


Need help deciding on a speaker system. I listen to mostly acoustic Jazz and am looking for a system that accurately reproduces the lush harmonics of the string bass and the clean timbres of brass and cimbles. Problem is it needs to be a bookshelf system and my budget is around $600 - 800. Do folks think I need a subwoofer or will a monitor with good response down to 40 or 45 hz suffice for the string bass? Obviousky if I go with a sub there wilk be some loss of coherence and I don't want a thumper to shake the room with HT special effects.

My system is a Linn Classic, Music Halll MMF-5 TT with Goldring 1012GX cartrige and Bellari VP129 pre-amp.

I'm thinking of three very different aproaches. 1) Magnepan MC-1 with a sub like the PSB SubSeries 5i or the Infinity PS10. 2) A budget monitor like the NHT SB3, PSB B25 or Infinity Primus 150. 3) One of the above monitors above with one of the above subs

Any suggestions? Thanks, PDenni
peterennis1

Showing 3 responses by pabelson

There's no such thing as a monitor that goes down to 40 Hz. Speakers that size start tailing off somewhere in the 70s. My suggestion would be a small monitor like the PSB Alpha or Paradigm Titan, along with as good a sub in the same line as you can afford.
Let me rephrase that. It takes heroic meaures to pull it off, and such measures are not found in the $600-800 price range. I'll stick to my recommendation of a small monitor and a sub. Otherwise, you're likely to hear that bass fade out as it runs down a descending scale.

Let me comment on one other point from another post:

the 'typical' bass has a lowest frequency of about 42Hz

If I recall, that's the low end of an electric bass, but full-size acoustic basses go down into the low 30s or high 20s, I believe. You don't need a speaker that goes that low, necessarily. But one that claims to roll off at 50 Hz (and probably really rolls off a good deal higher than that--bass claims for speakers are notoriously unreliable) may not cut it for you.

A lot depends on your room and your set-up, however, and that probably goes double for bass issues. Whatever way you go, be absolutely sure to try it out at home with full return privileges. The best we can give you is general guidelines, and a speaker that couldn't cut it in your living room might be all you need in a bedroom.
Peter (I presume):

A speaker that really is 3-5 dB down at 40 Hz is going to give you very good bass performance. That's not the point. Speaker measurements depend very much on who's doing the measuring and how they're doing it. Manufacturers will always try to put their products in the best light. John Atkinson's measurements tend to be pretty generous, as well. If you look at the NRC measurements at http://www.soundstage.com, you'll see they're a bit more conservative. Tom Nousaine's measurements in Sound & Vision are even more conservative. None of them are wrong. But none of them really tell you what you will hear in your room. (And, obviously, they aren't comparable.)

I'm not anti-measurement, far from it. I'm just saying that what you want to know can't be known based on the information you have. What you want to know is, will I miss the bass with these monitors? And the only way to know that is to try one or two out.