Do most people prefer tight bass or non tight bass?

I like the bass my Rythmik F12G produces for me with its paper cone, servo control, and multitude of adjustment possibilities - in particular its three damping adjustments (high/medium/low) that work for ALL music genres .  For the jazz/blues/classic rock music I most listen to, high damping is king.  It gives me the tightest, most articulate bass possible.  An incredibly fast, resolving subwoofer (no affiliation w/the brand, just a fan).

In a word (or words) I'm partial to tight bass, which seems to me to dovetail with the term "articulate".  I don't know if you can get one w/out the other.  Or......they're simply synonymous audiophile terms.  Can bass be "articulate"...but not "tight"?  

You decide. 

What kind of music do you listen to? If you have a lot of classical music, you want bass that delivers harmonics in the cello and double bass section. (less tight, but more harmonically accurate).

If you listen to pop or rock, then more concussive bass might serve your music well.

Battered

The first consideration must be : What is the SOURCE of the bass ?  Bass is not generic --- it is specific.  Is the source instrument bowed, plucked, blown or struck to produce the bass in question ?  The "leading edge" of the sound predicates the instrument that produces it.  A bowed doublebass has no "slam".  A tuba cannot sustain a note as long as a bowed doublebass can unless the tuba player uses a technique called "circular breathing".  A percussive or struck bass will decay rapidly whereas a blown or bowed bass can be sustained at the will of the player.  Once the source is determined, then a correct assessment of bass can be made.

Of course, with the advent of electronically produced bass, all bets are off since bass guitar can be sent directly into the recording console without the benefit of any acoustical environment to "tailor" the sound.  "FutureMan", the bass player with "Bela Fleck and The Flecktones" added octaves below what one would expect with his ground shaking "Drumitar" instrument that he invented.  So, in regards to electronic bass, your guess is as good as mine.

 

 

 

Great response. Thank you for this.

I don’t think most modern audiophiles listen to classical or jazz music a lot, so acoustic instruments are not something they seem to know well. If I go by what I hear on YouTube, acoustic instruments are practically non-existent on most pop songs.

By contrast, if this was 1982, it would still be mostly acoustic 🎸(and analogue). I can’t fathom not hearing all the beautiful instruments that exist. And it’s ironic: we’ve arrived in the ’Digital Age’  where everything is available, but we use fewer instruments to make music than we ever have and most of that is electronic instruments. Which is wildly ironic, since High End designers were trying to make their component reproduce all the colors of an orchestra playing acoustic instruments, only to have so much music reduced, 20 years later in pop music, to a diet composed (almost completely) of drums, guitar, synthesizer for the most part. The odd instrument is thrown in, but mostly, the tonal palette in pop music is pretty "gray"-sounding.