What is the most dramatic way of increasing a speaker's Bass and Low mid?

The ATC 25ASL PRO has a 7” woofer  And The low mids to liws are very very full. Easy for a 7” woofer, should be easy for a6.5”.  I have no issues with the very low area. It just aounds empty and hollow in the low mids. Its not the size, its the voicing. 

Doing a bit of armchair research is helpful; the speaker specs at 33 Hz
 +/- 2dB, tight specs. So, 28 Hz +/- 3 dB is not inconceivable. 

Then, there shouldn't be any "hole". So, I see the frustration of dumbeat, as it seems there should be enough low end presence. However, this is your classic tiny tower, and you simply are not going to get prodigious bass with smallish drivers in such  cabinet, regardless of the fine quality of a Merlin speaker. If you try to push such a speaker in an attempt to jack up the presence you are now flirting with distortion. Not an easy balancing act. 

It is telling that recommendation was to put a "BAM" unit with the speaker. I found this in an old Stereophile review, "BAM Bass Augmentation Module: Supplies 5.2dB of boost at 35Hz and infrasonic rolloff below 27Hz." 

It seems to me the BAM was a concession of the weakness of this speaker in regards to the bass presence region. Nice design in many respects, but problematic in the region dumbeat has pinpointed. To avoid such things one typically has to move away from skinny, smallish towers toward larger cabinets and bass drivers.

Note also that the ATC has a bass adjustment from -2 to +3 dB; again, such things are necessary when speakers struggle to produce "natural" presence in the mid-bass.  

As usual, size matters in both cabinets and drivers.  

Finally, a word about cables. Studio use of cables has little relevance to domestic systems and cables. The applications are vastly different, and the beneficial nature of working with cables in the home becomes apparent quickly (If one bothers to try).  An exceptional way to mediocre sound is to ignore aftermarket cables, and or stay with "affordable" cables to avoid comparisons and advancement. Having worked with dozens of brands of cables over decades not only are cables responsible for far, far more than 1% of a home system's sound, but the selection of cables can literally make or break the components and speaker's performance.
  YMMV 

Doug, the elegance of the Merlin VSM/BBAM design was that a Scanspeak 8545 driver has sufficient excursion to be EQ’d into a full-range midrange/bass driver, provided that the EQ fully attenuates frequencies below 30hz. Its admittedly constrained dynamics at high volumes for large rooms is the price that one pays for the coherence of a crossoverless point-source from 30hz to 2Khz.  As digital crossovers and equalizers were mediocre in those days, the analog BBAM was the ticket.

An exceptional way to mediocre sound is to ignore aftermarket cables, and or stay with "affordable" cables to avoid comparisons and advancement. Having worked with dozens of brands of cables over decades not only are cables responsible for far, far more than 1% of a home system’s sound, but the selection of cables can literally make or break the components and speaker’s performance.
YMMV

thanks Douglas.
Well, whatever huge differences in cables ot should be measurable.
Would you provide a chart of different wire and the Measured difference they made?
Otherwise its like asking someone why he believes in god. Belief has nothing to do with this topic- Its not a serious argument. I need data.

There are more golfen ear people claim its a marketing scam(to get tons of money out of rich people who think there is a real differemce) than people who actually use it.. so the jury is more than out on this one.

i hear claims like “oh i got so
much more bass with cardass this or that”. Which frequency? By how much? Bell? Shelf?

and the claims of larger stereo field... do they mean more phase issues...?

Finally, a word about cables. Studio use of cables has little relevance to domestic systems and cables.

Beg to differ.

The job of the audio cable is the same in either case: Transmit the signal with as little signal loss and interference/distortion as possible. The same electrical theory applies wherever you are using audio cables.

Though pro applications can become even more critical (due to often longer cable lengths,  and other in the field issues). And when it comes to the claims that boutique audiophile cables are required to pass truly high fidelity signals, the facts about the cables actually used to make the recordings are exceptionally relevant: Every time you put in your new Ultra Amazing New Cable and ooh and ah at the clarity, detail, nuance and sonic information, you are in fact hearing the the quality of sound that was passed through good old, standard grade cables pros use. In fact, you are also hearing whatever cables were the weakest link in the chain.

This in of itself should give an audiophile pause when he thinks it requires high end cabling to pass extremely high quality sound. The most expensive systems in the world, producing the best sound in the world, are essentially "using" basic cables to achieve their sound, insofar as they are playing mostly recordings made using basic cables.

I work in post production sound, and have had my work mixed in many fantastic mixing theaters, many of which sound simply amazing. And I know what cables have been generally used in many of them (I even knew the company making the cables to order for the studios, basically versions of Canare, Belden....). The idea that non-boutique cabling is required for amazing sound is just ludicrous on so many examples in the pro world.

An exceptional way to mediocre sound is to ignore aftermarket cables, and or stay with "affordable" cables to avoid comparisons and advancement.

Sorry, but I believe this needs to be called out for what it is: B.S.

I use "affordable" belden speaker cable. A long run of it at that.
And a rag tag collection of interconnects (much of it the old Kimber PBJ, which I bought many years ago, though some others as well).


I’m quite familiar with aftermarket cables - have owned them, borrowed, them, have heard my speakers on up to $45,000 and more worth of cabling (Nordost and others). I’ve had a range of Shunyata power cables to try out, etc. (Blind tested against a standard $15 power cable, no discernible difference). Did my speakers sound great with the expensive cabling? Yes! Did they sound great with the not-expensive cabling? Yes!

I have a long thread detailing my most recent "speaker journey" looking to see if I want to add another pair of speakers to my system - heard many of the latest from Magico, Focal, Raidho, Devore and tons of others. Inevitably all were hooked up to expensive aftermarket cables, amps, sources using aftermarket power cables, yadda yadda....

I never heard sound substantially better than what I get at home with my affordable cabling, no revelations of detail, tone, soundstaging, smoothnes, clarity. When I’d get home and spin the same tracks, I heard all those goodies, and preferred my home set up.

I played some vinyl for a friend who is a musician/producer last night, and he was simply astonished by the utter clarity and realism of the system "like I was on the floor where it was recorded, experiencing the real sound."
Another friend is a reviewer of high end gear who has had tons of expensive cables, speakers, amps etc through his place, declared after hearing some vocal tracks on my system that it was so realistic it was almost unsettling.How in the world did my system with "mediocre" cabling impress someone so used to listening through ultra high end cabling??? Maybe the influence of cables isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be, in the hierarchy of relevance.


Now, is this simply to brag about my system? No. Because most of us hear have fantastic sounding systems. I only bring all these details up to rebuff this false idea, repeated too often in posts like yours, that one has to move beyond "affordable" cables or suffer "mediocre" sound.

It’s simply false, and I think it’s a disservice to promote this idea to people who may not know better and will enter this hobby having absorbed this idea they have to spend more money on cables than they really need to.
It’s one thing to perhaps claim that the properties of an aftermarket cable may be impressive in some respect, and even may alter the sound of a system (and then we’d have to go in to how it is doing that). It’s another to claim that aftermarket boutique audiophile cables are *necessary* for realizing truly high fidelity sound.