Why is good, deep bass so difficult? - Myths and their Busters

Erik, I agree that deep bass can be problematic. In my situation, in my large room (16.5' X 34', which includes the kitchen/dining room, w/cathedral ceilings in main living room area). I'm using two subs, a 15" passive Tannoy and 12" Velodyne that I converted into a ported sub with a plate amp and two 3" ports, and Eminence driver (can't remember the model).

I guess you could say I avoided much of the room induced bass problems by using subs that don't go down that deep, not much lower than 30Hz, if that. The two subs are situated katty-corner from each other, the 15" Tannoy next to the L/H Tannoy HPD, the Eminence 14' away.

Due to mostly dumb luck and patience, I was able to integrate these subs into my mostly-music oriented system without exciting any nasty room nodes. My room was very bass-friendly to my 12" Tannoys before the addition of the subs, with the subs, the bass response is nearly perfect to my ears. I do have a modest HT system included in the system, and it sounds great in that mode, but what I've done was all about the music. I hate boomy bass!

There are no room treatments of any kind, nor do I feel the need for them. I consider myself very fortunate indeed.

Best regards,
Dan

Let me state unequivocally, deep bass is difficult for the average consumer. Most audiophiles are better off with bass limited speakers, or satellite/subwoofer systems. The former limits the danger you can get into. The latter has the most chance of success IF PROPERLY IMPLEMENTED.

I couldn’t agree more. I made that mistake, of going for a big speaker as my first foray into this madness and it simply overloaded my room. The speakers were Legacy Classics. Having gone through several other speakers I’ve found the goldilocks speaker for my room: a monitor. I have no need for a sub as I get very tangible bass down to the mid 30s with the low 30s and upper 20s reasonably represented.

It’s tight, tuneful and full of tone, and very well delineated. The only downside is that they’re rear ported so there’s that secondary piling on at certain frequencies but it’s easily tolerable and maybe I’ll look into something else to quell it but it’s not a deal breaker, in the least. Others don’t notice it until I point it out.

All the best,
Nonoise

ULF Bass is the most difficult to reproduce accurately. 99% of what is available is reflex extended resonant bass - B&W, Wilson, JM Labs and all the major audiophile brands do it. Most boutique brands do it too. You can easily identify this by the hump in the bass on a frequency plot and the one note bass sound of 99% of speakers.

Clean bass needs a Q of 0.7 or less and two 15 inch woofers in most domestic settings. (4 x 12" woofers will be equivalently capable.) I rarely see this kind of setup on Audiogon so I don’t think many people are even aware of the issues raised by Erik.

Sticking a good subwoofer with 99% of these reflex extended speakers is just not going to be able to correct the one note resonance. Hardly anyone builds speakers without the characteristic one note bass resonance as a low Q box sounds anemic in bass especially at low volumes and is therefire unlikely to sell in shop floor demos against competitors.

aha!  room modes

yes, we are back to rooms again - maybe we can find some magical liquid cables that will solve that???

see also Fig. 11-21 in Handbook of Acoustics...