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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Perception of bass?
Post Subject: Ok, it is all good.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 2/9/2020
Good question, rowuk, particularly by the fact that you are
looking a way not how to get it but to understand the ways to get there. Also,
I am very glad that you are not taking about “slam music” but about, where good
bass certainly shine but about chamber music where in my view good bass shine
much more.
Before I would lay out my recommendations, I would like to
name a few obvious factors. None of the loudspeakers
with woofers would do good bass unless you are incredibly lucky. Your main loudspeakers
should very specific and very deliberate poison in your listening room with precision
of centimeter or less and it is VERY unlikely that it would be the best position
for bass. If might be but then it would be one of 10000s installations what it happens.
Among all playbacks that I ever hears I remember only one when it happens and
BTW completely accidently. So, when we are taking about better bass then we are
taking about a dedicated pair of LF or ULF sections, separately powered and separately
located in your room. How to powered and what the topology of the ULF section
is very separate and complicated subject, let keep it out of the conversation
for now. We presume that you have your good full range speaker and your good LF
sections. You said that you have experimented with various subwoofers. Let presume
that your failed were not by the quality of your specific implementation. So, basically
you were trying to do it to pressurize your room with more LF output abut it did
not look give you satisfaction of "tactile" sensation. Well, if you measure
the bass responds in a concert whole in a reasonable seat then you would hardly
het -3dB at 60Hz and well about 100Hz when a chamber music is being played in a
concert whole.
Do an experiment. Get
any digital processor, switch your system in mono to connect your ONE dedicated
LF section with 10ms delay crossed at 30Hz and another LF section with 50ms
delay crossed at 20Hz. You will not get your
"tactile" sensation but you will get MUCH better bass it despite that
most like if will be verlanized by your digital processor. So, what you effectively
be dos is creating a longer reverberation time in your 20 square meters listening
room. In your room you have RT60 (now long sound decades for 60dB) probably
0.2-03 seconds. In a reasonable concert hall you will get 2-5 seconds and some
of them longer. This is very much changing how the perceive not only bass but
the sound in entirety.
When you will be doing the experiments with LF delay try two
tests. Play a good fast, loud and “aggressive” chamber music (I typically go
for Third movement of Brahms Quintet for Piano in F minor). Crank your volume until
you feel it become uncomfortable. Note the volume level. Then connect your LF section with no delays.
Do the same volume test. Your “uncomfort level” will go up for 1-2dB. Now introduce
the delay. Your “uncomfort level” will go up for 10dB at least. Make the very
same experiment with a good full range recording of a good harpsicord playing. Besides
the “uncomfort level” experiment pays attention how ugly and abrasive harpsicord
sounds at your only main speakers or with LF sections and how lash and magical
it become with the delays. I typically for those experiments used a Colombia
player Rafael Puyana. He was very well Recorded on Mercury and his play of Antonio
Soler is stanning. The Soler died 300 years ago but it sounds very contemporary.
So, if you decide to yourself that what you were missing is
longer decay in your room then let me know and I will pitch some directions to
capitalize over this finding. If you feel that the chaise for longer decay did
not bring you closer to what you are looking then let me know, preferably with
more subjective adjectives what you do feel and we can go from there.
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