Men & Women & Bass


My wife was relating to me that a friend of a friend (female)had recently "thrown-up" after going to a rock concert. I forget which one, maybe Cher, popular music anyway. I was pretty sure it was caused from that feeling in the stomach/chest area generated by bass in the 50-100hz region. In my college days I took a girl to see my friend's band who had a great PA at the time, with plenty of low-end kick. After a short while I had to take her home, because she said the drum kick bass was making her queasy.
So, I am just wondering if other people have insight to this phenomenom? I know I have not encountered any females that are into subs and woofers in general. But than again, I never run across any females that even have any interest in high-end, but I live in a small city, and don't get out much either. Why is it that men seem to love that "effect"
that T-Rex type bass seems to provide? Is it sexual, mental, neither? I have also heard that low enough bass can also be used as a type of weapon, bursting you from the inside out.
pelv
Subaru-- be careful with that Bass-- you basically burst from the inside out -- it could have been deadly ......
Yeah, I saw that explosion thing on a sci-fi movie. Cool!!!

Don't have a clue about the bass thing but I don't live too far from a switching yard (railroad) and sometimes the diesels sit & idle. It's the most irritating low frequency sound I've ever dealt with. It doesn't bother anybody else in the family but me.
Wow. Should i go there or shouldn't i ???

There was a thread quite a while back on AA about something similar regarding low frequency reproduction and what heterosexuals and homosexuals preferred. Let's just say that some of the conclusions drawn within that thread were pretty interesting. Sean
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Actually Tim, the sonic preferences that i have "prove" my heterosexuality according to the "survey" results. Not that they were ever in question, mind you : )

From what i read there, it seems as if homosexual males and females have similar preferences. Both groups preferred less "robust" bottom end and preferred a "leaner" sound. I know that this is a "broad" generalization at best ( pardon me ladies, but it was there and... ), but those were the observations that a few folks that contributed to the thread had come up with.

As to Tim's comments, i have 14 woofers in my HT system. Does that tell you what side of the fence i fall on ? : ) Sean
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Damn, Kelly beat me to the punchline... ;^)
(For the record though, I guess I would've said something like, "Hey, I'd probably puke too if I found myself at a Cher concert - wouldn't you?" Obviously, the woman just possesses some latent good taste.)

Still, I think Cfb's on to something else here: It's not the bass, it's not the volume, it's not a male or female thing - it's the mind-twistingly scary plastic surgery! Get within too close a range of Cher at just the wrong instant in her living-on-borrowed-time existence, and something other than your own throw-up might splatter your shoes when that job finally lets go...

(But you know, I cannot tell a lie, Cher will still always be cool to me. Just toss your hair, lick your lip, pull up your fur vest, throw on your old copy of "I Got You Babe", and remember a more innocent time. She was tough, she was babelicious, she wore striped jeans with fringed suede boots, gazed up with Cleopatra eyes from under those perfectly straight long black locks - and she had Sonny Bono writing the tunes and producing at his Phil Spector meets Jack Nitzsche best. Try to forget that he became a Republican and she became a vocoder-abusing, sequin-hoarding geriatric mannequin. Just don't lose yourself in the reverie and ski into a tree...)
Anyway, just to get back on point; I've had similar experiences with women and bass. I actually think it comes down to the lasting effects of our primative past. Bass sounds in nature are usually signs of danger ( earthquake, thunder, stampede) or food (stampede) At a corer level these sounds actually generate a little fear. I think that is why some of us have a love of bass. Since fear is really at the root of all emotion.
My wife loves bass, we use two Velodyne HGS-18's. Larry Archibald former owner of Stereophile said low bass (30hz) often made him sick. There have been white papers written on the subject.
Curt
Zaikesman- In regards to your comment about CFB statement- "if I could turn back time" :)
Stereotypes and assumptions are funny. Most women I know who like men like deep voices, like Paul Robeson and Terry Evans, or the bass in the Fairfield Four. And the popular music I know of with the deepest and loudest bass riffs are cds by women - Jennifer Warnes and Kari Bremnes.
Maybe both wommen were prego?_ hey this sounds good enough to get a federal grant out of the research-inquiring minds want to know!
I guess it took a woman like Judit to figure out what the "real deal" really was : ) Sean
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Power, shmower: This man has no use for HT-variety "T-REX" bass (or the movies it comes in).
(But T. Rex, now that's another story - Marc Bolan forever, jeepsters! :-)
A friend and fellow bass player discovered some old army research on how sub-bass (i think in the 8 hz region) could rattle a human's internal organs and at a certain level incapacitate them. aparently they abandoned the project when they realized how much power it would take .. it got impractical.

Anyway, my friend become obsessed with the project and made it his goal to put together a bass and stage amp that could put out thousands of wats at 8hz and earn him the ultimate in visceral audience reactions: a whole room full of fans puking after his solo.

I'm not sure how far he got with the project.

Paul
If you only play bass as well as I unfortunately do, there are easier ways of making a room full of 'fans' puke after your solo. But then again, any kind of purported 'rock' music that would even feature bass solos at all would likely be puke-inducing to my own sensibilities ("My Generation" excepted).

(BTW, does anybody think there is a grosser thread than this in all of the archives? :-)
Zaikesman- well now that you mention it there was one thread were my fondness of ported speakers came up(no pun intendid), if you follow me ;) gosh yur speakers are purty.
Aha! So Judit was wrong! It's not all about a feeling of power!
It's about...um...uh...a feeling of something else...
...um, never mind. ;^)
Well Zaikesman, at least you didn't call me a vocodor-abusing sequin-hoarding geriatric mannequin.
No Judit, I wouldn't do that...uh, you aren't one, are you? ;^)

(BTW, I don't really think you're wrong about the male/power thing, and not just about bass or volume or competitiveness or absolutist/perfectionist secret knowledge and supposed super-human abilities of discernment, but about the whole gear/money/acquisitive audiophile paradigm. This would suggest that the impulse, evolutionarily speaking, might have originated in the need to attract a mate, like any display of power, and has been subverted for a few in our modern world into the audio hobby we know today. But how can this theory explain your presence in our midst? :-)

P.S. - For a laugh along these lines, have a look at the ad on page 36 of the current Stereophile...
I just tried a 9-13 Hz Chinese random-wave generator to massage my lower spine. Supposed to be a high-amplitude adjunct to the body's natural alpha waves. Feels like a cat sitting on me "purring", which is my wife's daily evening treat. However, my back's not getting better. And my wife prefers Cyrus.
When my ex-wife used to scream it was like a radio shack supertweeter blasting HIGH FREQ's kinda like cats being tourchered! Almost as bad as Cher singing and worst than any bass ive ever heard. Now thats power... everyone runs for cover. I felt like puking atleast once a week...
...Don't even want to know what made your ex-wife scream like that once a week...
Zaike -- T. Rex / M Bolan??? Is this historical knowledge OR "Geeez, some of us are showing our age around here":)?

Judith -- tsk, tsk! I remember Cher when she was paired to a Son(n)y -- how's that for geriatric. And I saw D Oistrakh in concert as a teenager...
BTW, what's a vocorder, where's it placed in a S.Orch???

My wife hates low bass because it reminds her of the sound of an earthquake (& guess what: I've got a stereo sub). BUT she loves rythm & has a better grasp of "naturalness" than I do. She doesn't like Cher.
How do you feel when a vehicle with a loud sub-woofer drives by your house at night? I hate to admit to not being manly, but this is one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.
Yeah, this makes me feel like puking too, but that's because of the (lack of) *quality* of the bass, not the *quantity*. (In fact, that same description always seems to apply to the music too, come to think of it. :-)
Well..hate to burst theories...but T-Rex was known for buttering both sides of his toast...if u know what I am saying...and anybody who has ever been clubbing knows "bottom boys" dig bass pumpin electronic music...just for the record...I am not a switch hitter....I dig chicks...
What can I say...I am the daddy Mac...ha ha ha...and dont have any kids...or...none that I know about...