To Sub or not to Sub...?


...Or to buy best full range speakers i can afford? For listening classical music.
tinfoil26929

Showing 4 responses by lindeman507bf

i am sorry that you lost me sugar...and i hope that you are better performer than a listener.
Yes, i do not know what i am talking about. I am just a... 'masochistic' a bit? I probably like to deprive myself from a 'decent' sound. Well, you should know about that 'malady' Dr. Detlof?
The lowest note produced by any orchestral instrument is 29Hz, from contra-bassoon, while piano goes down 27.5Hz. Actually, it only rarely that those instruments get down that far. When they do, fundamental is very weak anyway, and most of the character is imparted to the tone by the harmonics. The lowest harmonics, which is the second, is in the above cases 55Hz and 58Hz respectively! The bass drum is about the only orchestral instrument that really needs a deep bass response to do it justice, as it has few harmonics beyond the starting transients.
To reproduce down to the lowest frequencies, it is by no means essential. In fact, SUB-bass response it reveals nothing but the rumble! Bass response within a few dB dowen to 45Hz can be considered desirable to give depth and richness to the reproduction, little is gained by going lower. And even higher limit can often be preferable to a lower one gained at the expense of naturalness. Also listening room dimensions may not permit the propagation of bas much lower than this anyway.
"One man's meat is another man's poison" Nowhere is it more true than in choice of loudspeakers. What features do you look in a loudspeaker? The perfect loudspeaker doesn't exist, and many of the requirements are incompatible when applied to practical loudspeaker design. If we want one we must sacrifice another.
' 'Tinfoil' is interested in classical music. He didn't mention anything about 'explosions' home theater or for that matter size, shape and associated gear. We do not know these facts. The fact is that amount of bass, that can be fully developed in any listening room depends on the room size. The lowest frequencies that can be produced is governed by the longest room dimension and is given by: f=560:d (divide). Where f is the lowest frequency and d is longest dimension in feet. So 12ft dimension limits the response to 46Hz. It follows than that throwing out other furniture to make room for large speakers or SUB, that goes well below the room's frequency limit does no good at all!
For 'Tinfoil' purchasing best speakers he can afford is best way to start.