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"Musical" subwoofers? Advice please on comparing JL subs

I'm ready to be taught and I'm ready to be schooled. I've never owned a subwoofer and I'm not so hot with the physics of acoustics. I've had my eye on two 10" JL Audio subwoofers, the e110 ($1600) and the f110v2 ($3500). I hope this is a simple question: will the f110v2 be more "musical" than the e110?

Perhaps unnecessary details: I'm leaning into small bookshelf speakers, mini monitors with limited bass, for near-field listening in a small room. I don't want to rock the casbah and rattle the windows; I want to enhance the frequency range from roughly 28hZ to perhaps 90 or 100hZ: the lower notes of the piano, cello, bassoon, double bass, etc. I think I'm asking: will one of those subwoofers produce a more "musical" timbre in that range? Is spending the extra $2000 worth it in terms of acoustic warmth and pleasure? More generally, are some subs more musical than others? Or is that range just too low for the human ear to discern critically? 

I know there are a lot of variables and perhaps my question can't be answered in isolation. If it helps, let's put to the side topics such as room treatments, DSP and DARO, debates about multiple subs, debates about using subwoofers at all, and the difficulties of integration. Let's assume a fast main speaker with limited bass. I'm not going to put a 12" sub in the room. While I'm not going to put four subs in the small room, I would strongly consider putting in two, and it would of course be much more economical to put in two e110s. This, though, would only lead to the same question now doubled: would two f110v2 subs sound more musical than two e110s? Also, I'm sure there are other fine subs out there but I'm not looking for recommendations; if it helps to extrapolate, consider the REL S/510 and T/5i. 

I realize that I may be wildly off with all this, and I know that the best way to find out is to try them out. I'm not at that point yet. I'm simply curious about the "musicality" of different subwoofers. 
northman
jssmith
294 posts
 
There’s no such thing as a "musical" or ("non-musical") sub. It either extends to a certain range at a certain decibel level within an acceptable range or it doesn’t. Don’t get caught up in the JL "musical" hype.

Some of the others are right about multiple subwoofers. You can read all about the reasons and placement in Harman’s white paper. To skip all the technical info just go to Conclusions to get optimum general placement for two or four subwoofers, although it’s also advantageous to understand why you place them at certain wave length distances, but the Conclusions will get you close. And although it doesn’t include all subwoofers, you can go to Data-Bass to get tested specifications on subwoofers.
northman OP
236 posts
 
Q: How many audiophiles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: What kind of light fixture is it and how is it wired? Is the bulb dimmable? A watt is a watt but some watts are brighter than others. Before you change that lightbulb, have you considered room treatments? And so on...

I'm goofing around and I really do appreciate all the different opinions. (By the way, I have no idea if JL claims its subwoofers are musical; that was my word, not theirs.) 

So here's a question that should have an actual answer: at what hz point does the average human ear start to discern music, timbre, nuance? Is the lowest note on a piano, at roughly 28hz, just a low rumble of vibration, the same on a Steinway Grand as on a cheap cottage piano? And if that's the case, at what point on the keyboard can most people start to detect a note with resonance and beauty? By the way, I do understand and accept the physics behind multiple subs--no argument there at all. 
jssmith
294 posts
 
Well, first let's throw away the words that don't have a definitive definition, like music, timbre and beauty. Everything we hear is just a set of frequencies. How we interpret them is another thing. One person's "music" is another person's "noise". One person's "brassy" is another person's "strident". One person's "nuance" is another person's "out of tune". And resonance is something that depends on your particular speaker or instrument's natural frequency of vibration. You either hear a frequency or you don't.

The human ear hears above 20Hz. So it hears as well as feels the piano's 28Hz. It generally feels mostly in the 50-100Hz area, however this depends on the individual and things like their chest cavity and even body fat levels. 

As to the Steinway versus the cheap piano, yes, they're both 'A' notes at 28 Hz. The fundamental frequency is the same because they're tuned the same. Given equal hammer strikes, it's everything after the vibration is created that makes the difference (enclosure physics, harmonics, scale length, microphone placement, etc.).

I know that doesn't answer your question, but I'm not sure there is an answer to your question, as most of it pertains to individual perception. Once you get past output level capabilities, the room actually has more to do with bass frequencies and how they're perceived. That's why understanding wave lengths in relation to subwoofer placement is useful.

And BTW, there is no such thing as a subwoofer with faster or slower bass. That's another common myth. Bass waves are already slow enough for any woofer to handle them.
northman OP
236 posts
 
I truly appreciate the answer but I ain't never going to "throw away .. music, beauty, and timbre." That's like saying that a poem is just organized words which are just signifiers operating arbitrarily in a system of differences. Sure, right, but we can still *experience* beauty in the arrangement of those words, and to give up on that is to live in a mechanistic world without, well, art. And that's no world I want to live in. (And contra many posts out here, beauty may be "culturally constructed" and contingent, but it's not nearly as subjective as people think.) 

Sigh. I feel like there must be an answer to my question, but maybe I'm wrong. We are drawn to speakers because they reproduce a range of frequencies in ways that are pleasing to us. They sound warm or inviting or thrilling or holographic or punchy or big or assertive or magical or whatever. It seems to me that subwoofers either do that or they don't; or it seems to me that there must be an hZ point at which we can begin to discern the sound we're looking for. If subwoofers don't reproduce an appealing image at, say, 80hZ-100hZ, then there's nothing for us to hear, only feel. But at some point up the frequency range we must be able to identify the signature, the sound, that we like. No?

audiorusty
265 posts
 

So here's a question that should have an actual answer: at what hz point does the average human ear start to discern music, timbre, nuance?
Interesting question. In my opinion a single note is not music. To me music is a series of notes and rhythms structured together usually in some type of pattern. This can happen anywhere in the audible spectrum, so music would be all frequencies. Nuance probably is more open to interpretation. I feel nuance is more of a function of dynamics and is mostly affected by room acoustics including ambient noise, so in this case it also would fall anywhere in the audible spectrum. Timbre is one of the things that allows us to differentiate between instruments and I believe it is due to emphasis or de-emphasis of certain frequencies in the harmonic structure created by the vibration of the material that the instrument is made of so technically these also would cover the entire audible spectrum.  Now having said that, I believe that it is the higher frequencies that give us most of the cues that we use to help us specify what we hear. At what frequency does that start? I don’t know, but my guess would be at the point where we can start to localize where the sound is coming from. For discussions sake I will take that a step further and say most of the information we use to determine timbre and other aspects of sound happen between 400 Hz and 4k Hz. Frequencies below that, in my opinion, creates warmth and the sense of power and frequencies above create the sense of greater detail.

Back to your original post. 

if I were "very experienced" or had calibration tools, I could achieve similar results for much less money. (I'm not and I don't, but I also don't have the big bucks to throw around.)

Experience of course comes from doing, that is the same boat for all of us, but there are guys that have posted in this thread that can help you get started and send you down the correct path. As for calibration tools, this mic https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1, REW (a free download) and a computer, and you should be good to go.

Nothing to be a feared of, we are here to help.


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