Why there isn't any revolution in PC Speakers

Megalith said:

Instant fail if a system requires a sub to sound acceptable...

Click to expand...

Sounding "acceptable" isn't what we're going for here.

Megalith said:

Instant fail if a system requires a sub to sound acceptable...

Click to expand...

Meh.

Every famous band that you care to name and thinks sounds good uses dedicated subs in their live arrays. You want low end extension at home, you either need monstrous full cabinets (with woofer cones built in) or a dedicated woofer(s). C'est la vie. You're not going to get "acceptable" bass out of 6" desktop or bookshelf woofers.

I don't understand buying large, dedicated computer speakers. It seems easier just to use an actual receiver & stereo speakers? I'm currently running an old MCS 3226 receiver and Paradigm Atoms on my main rig and I LOVE them.

This is my friend's setup - Yamaha receiver + Yamaha something or another full tower w/15" woofers + 12" sub from partsexpress


And this is my old college setup - I'm still using the same speakers on my main rig & the same receiver (Yamaha RX-V2400) on my HTPC.

And then imagine your windows rattling from the thunderous bass that comes from:


wait, what? Those rattle your windows?

Yep. The windows in the rest of the house even. Klipsch's 140 Pro Media's offer similar db levels with similar lack of size, but these do it while being precise and the Klipsch's do it like it's a noisy chore.
I don't have room for either tower speakers or traditional bookshelfs.

Nice thing about nearfield monitors is that you are in the sweetspot but you are sitting 2 feet from them. Towers for a computer? Not ergonomic, but of course itl get the job done. Imaging and staging is important to me.

My horn loaded 18" bass with 2500W amp power rattles windows. Those things... meh.

B00nie said:

My horn loaded 18" bass with 2500W amp power rattles windows. Those things... meh.

Click to expand...

Meh. 18" excursion so slow it's still trying to move when next beat comes up. 2500 watts get you arrested around here unless you on wheels. I'm trying to listen to music at my desk. Not run a movie theatre.

Anyway the 8" sub is under the desk. It's doing the rattling.

Bluesun311 said:

Meh. 18" excursion so slow it's still trying to move when next beat comes up.

Click to expand...

Oh boy... I sense B00nie will be itching to respond to this one. He seems like the type who would want to defend his behemoth subwoofer's honor. I'll just leave this here for fodder:
http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/WooferSpeed.pdf

Edit: And yes... of course his 18" sub makes no sense for most people.

I've been using a pair of Alesis Studio Monitors for my setup for over 12 years now.
they sound excellent to me and don't need a subwoofer.

here is an old pic of the setup,

Guys: This isn't a true audiophile forum. Give Blue a break! He likes his system & that's all that matters in the end. I must admit I'm a tad intrigued with his set-up. If I lived near-by, I would have asked if I could audition them. I went in another direction & spent an extra $600.00 vs. Blue's set up. I have read a few reviews on Blue Sky products & most people really like them.

Cyrix2k said:

I don't understand buying large, dedicated computer speakers. It seems easier just to use an actual receiver & stereo speakers? I'm currently running an old MCS 3226 receiver and Paradigm Atoms on my main rig and I LOVE them.

This is my friend's setup - Yamaha receiver + Yamaha something or another full tower w/15" woofers + 12" sub from partsexpress

And this is my old college setup - I'm still using the same speakers on my main rig & the same receiver (Yamaha RX-V2400) on my HTPC.

Click to expand...

Your friend's setup doesn't make sense. That speaker system is designed to sound good from a dozen feet away. In a medium size living room. You need NEAR-FIELD speakers for computer use because those are designed to sound good at close range. with that setup you are much better off buying a creative megaworks 2.1 system and place the sats under screen 1 and 3. It will be cheaper and sound a hell of a lot better if you actually sit in a position wher eyou can use that keyboard...

Archmage said:

Oh boy... I sense B00nie will be itching to respond to this one. He seems like the type who would want to defend his behemoth subwoofer's honor. I'll just leave this here for fodder:
http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/WooferSpeed.pdf

Edit: And yes... of course his 18" sub makes no sense for most people.

Click to expand...

Well... This is way over my head but in the article they are talking about 6.5" woofers. Still-it's clear enough from looking around the net I had that old fallacy of bigger means slower stuck in my head and it's wrong. There is this issue of mass vs. inductance. I'm willing to give the authors the benefit of the doubt that it is inductance and not mass that affects transient response, because--like I said, it's over my head. But it doesn't take a degree in physics to see that an 18" woofers excursion is much longer than an 8". I can't help but wonder what the proper crossover frequency is for the sub in question.

I think part of my confusion comes from seeing guys with huge subs that were either shitty quality or they didn't have enough power for. I expect 2500Watts and proper engineering choices on Magnet size etc, would mean Boonies 18 is every bit as fast as any other sub. But I had to read that article first.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/SPL nomographs.htm
http://cdn.avsforum.com/1/1c/1c7cd649_radiation_piston_zpsd4d8d28a.jpeg

There is some more math to hurt your head (Beranek, 1954).
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/showthread.php?212356-Voltage-to-Speaker-Cone-Velocity - and a slightly different discussion

But yea, I was really just joking around at B00nie's expense...heh... a shot at how he expresses his enthusiasm on this subject, which seems to eclipse even my own. I've not been active in the hobby for years. I actually thought your comment might have been sarcastic anyway.

I personally think your speakers are reasonably sized for the application. They are... on-topic. - Hell, At my desk I use bookshelf-sized speakers and cheap Koss headphones most of the time... that way I can drop my headphones and not worry. Most of the time I'm just researching and furiously reading (not about audio...I work (like a madman, with many papers and clipboards and screens and input devices (and I wish I had 5 arms and 2 heads, and one of those heads was on the 5th arm)) at my desk)... I'd use your system... no problem.

More off-topic:

The enclosure for a subwoofer (and really the room as well) may influence perception of transient response. That's a whole big discussion there... involving group delay and its relation to the natural low-octave bass-rolloff, influence of crossover filters (and maybe a mention of FIR filters for comparison), and... some more math and audibility discussions. I don't feel like delving into that, and I'm no expert... so:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/226585-we-can-not-hear-group-delay-under-100hz.html
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=24932.0
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/frontiers.htm#F

Bluesun311 said:

Meh. 18" excursion so slow it's still trying to move when next beat comes up. 2500 watts get you arrested around here unless you on wheels. I'm trying to listen to music at my desk. Not run a movie theatre.

Anyway the 8" sub is under the desk. It's doing the rattling.

Click to expand...

LOL! It seems you are clueless to audio. A 18" will blow away any small driver especially when horn loaded. It's faster, compresses less and delivers dynamic you've never heard unless you went to a large live concert.

Archmage said:

Oh boy... I sense B00nie will be itching to respond to this one. He seems like the type who would want to defend his behemoth subwoofer's honor. I'll just leave this here for fodder:
http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/WooferSpeed.pdf

Edit: And yes... of course his 18" sub makes no sense for most people.

Click to expand...

Firstly it's not a subwoofer but a bass. It rolls off around 40hz. But to have 40hz in outdoors is a feat that is usually only found in live concerts so I digress. A sub would require many meters long horn. I don't use it indoors either most of the time, I use it when I want to listen to music outdoors on my terrace. The enclosure is too large to fit in a computer room comfortably, about the size of a refrigerator. Although I am currently building a home cinema/office to the garage building and this will most likely feature an integrated sub horn of several meters size. Horns like this have to be built as a part of the building. A bass like that may sound crazy but once you've heard the ultra tight punch of the horn driver you want more. The dynamic is just incredible and you can feel it in your body even when playing at low volume. Most puny sub boxes make only noise, they do not produce the physical sensation of a bass hitting like when standing in a room where a real bass drum is being played. A horn gives that to you.

But even the small horn delivers when asked, when I was testing it the next door neighbors (which live almost half a kilometer away) bicycled over and asked if I could play something latino instead. Of course they were messing with me, it was their way of saying I played so loud they could hear it. I was surprised because I had my speakers pointing away from their house and the garage building was in between their house and my house. Anyway.

I then decided it's time to test the system at full volume, I switched to more latino style music and pushed the volume as far as I dared. I had the door open in my garage building and the horn was blowing out from the doorway towards my terrace and away from the neighbors. At full blast it made the garage walls shake so much that my garden scissors and screwdriver fell from the cement window sill after sliding down a bit with each beat of the bass.

Eventually we had to escape to the other side of my house with my friend holding our ears because it was just too loud already. 120+ db does no favors to your hearing and makes a mess of your stomach if you stand in front of the speaker too long. I let the song finish and ran back to the garage to turn the volume down again.

The neighbors haven't come again with more music requests.

Bluesun311 said:

like I said, it's over my head. But it doesn't take a degree in physics to see that an 18" woofers excursion is much longer than an 8". I can't help but wonder what the proper crossover frequency is for the sub in question.

Click to expand...

An 18" woofer requires 1/10th of the excursion to play the same amount of sound compared to a 8". Even less excursion is required when the driver is horn loaded. The horn amplifies the sound just like a trumpet amplifies the lip noises a trumpet player produces.

So in reality the larger a bass driver you have, the more accurate bass you will get due to physical factors. A large surface moves air more efficiently and sound is nothing but moving air. A small driver is at disadvantage. The difference gets all the bigger the lower the frequency is because the small driver has to extend huge amounts at low frequencies if you want to match the larger drive just barely moving. This is why you don't see subwoofers with small drivers and this is why you see dozens of large bass boxes in concerts or a stack of horn basses like mine. When was the last time you saw a concert with a 10" long excursion woofer playing the sound? LOL!

I think part of my confusion comes from seeing guys with huge subs that were either shitty quality or they didn't have enough power for. I expect 2500Watts and proper engineering choices on Magnet size etc, would mean Boonies 18 is every bit as fast as any other sub. But I had to read that article first.

Click to expand...

This is not accurate at all. A large driver requires a fraction of the power to play as loud as the small driver. My bass plays over 100db with a 1 watt amplifier, imagine that.

Most likely reason for the crappy bass you may have heard from large drivers is that they were designed badly. The drivers may have been cheap and used in wrong kind of enclosures. If you put a large bass in a small box, it will sound crappy. It will have ringing and the woofer will be out of control because the enclosure will not fit the driver parameters. Cheap 18" drivers require HUGE boxes, 800 to 1000 liters or even more. The pro drivers fit in much smaller boxes but the driver alone costs more than most peoples whole setup.

I use a Precision Devices 1850 which has a very high force factor (BL) which means it can produce a lot of sound when horn loaded. The horn gives pressure to the driver so that miniscule amounts of movement is required to produce a lot of sound - but that means your driver needs to have real oomph. The PD1850 delivers.

Imagine that, over 100db with a single watt. I have 2500 of them. Yes, it rattles walls.

B00nie said:

Firstly it's not a subwoofer but a bass. It rolls off around 40hz. But to have 40hz in outdoors is a feat that is usually only found in live concerts so I digress. A sub would require many meters long horn. I don't use it indoors either most of the time, I use it when I want to listen to music outdoors on my terrace.

Click to expand...

So you are bragging about a "bass" that can't go lower than 40Hz and telling people that don't know anything about "terraces" and putting on outdoor concerts that they are clueless to audio? Why are you in this thread about computer speakers? Do you have a computer on your terrace?

If you've never heard lower than 40hz outdoors you've never been to see a real concert. Like ones where people don't wear black ties. Or just down town the gangsters driving around have more power than your bass in their SUVs.

Bluesun311 said:

So you are bragging about a "bass" that can't go lower than 40Hz and telling people that don't know anything about "terraces" and putting on outdoor concerts that they are clueless to audio? Why are you in this thread about computer speakers? Do you have a computer on your terrace?

If you've never heard lower than 40hz outdoors you've never been to see a real concert. Like ones where people don't wear black ties. Or just down town the gangsters driving around have more power than your bass in their SUVs.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry but you just don't know what you're talking about

It is not practical to produce sub bass in outdoor concerts. 30-40hz is what you get and that is enough. 20hz is mostly vibration already, on the limit of human hearing. Horn bass like mine will extend below 40hz when many units are combined so they form more effective surface area and due to acoustic coupling they couple more effectively on lowest frequencies. In my personal application I can just boost the lowest octave because I have more than enough headroom for dynamics. It's not practical for me to play even at 50% volume at any time, I mostly use only 10% or less of the SPL available. If you push the sound to around 30% it becomes difficult already to talk without shouting in 5 meters distance.

As I said this part of the discussion was off topic, you were recommended to get near field pro monitors for your desktop and place them to ear level. If you've tried, say, a genelec monitor, you won't miss a subwoofer even though it only extends to 45ish hz. Most people who are fanatic about sub-30hz frequencies do not understand that the main audible part of music and bass happens between 40-150hz and this is the most important frequency range for practical concerns as far as bass dynamics and 'beat' go. It is also common that this kind of people blame frequency extension as the cause for not having a dynamic, tight bass. Very typically they make the mistake of over boosting sub frequencies and creating a boom-box which has no beat and dynamics, just low frequency noise. A good audio setup is balanced, has loads of dynamics and can be played at high levels without the sound becoming irritating. You don't get a dynamic thumping bass with subwoofers. Nope.

Sub bass is only good for movies and special effects, real music contains very little information below 30hz with the exception of organ music which has 16hz base frequency. And this is why most speaker manufacturers are not even attempting to extend their range all the way to 20hz.

Archmage said:

...wish I had 5 arms and 2 heads...

Click to expand...

Zaphod Beeblebrox Extreme Edition!

B00nie said:

An 18" woofer requires 1/10th of the excursion to play the same amount of sound compared to a 8".
<snip>
A large surface moves air more efficiently and sound is nothing but moving air. A small driver is at disadvantage.

Click to expand...

I think Boonie's skirting around the crux of the matter. Because F=MA, a larger, more massive cone can accelerate just as well as a smaller one, IF it has enough motor. Supposing I wanted "fast" bass, I'd prioritize sensitivity.

B00nie said:

I'm sorry but you just don't know what you're talking about
Sub bass is only good for movies and special effects, real music contains very little information below 30hz with the exception of organ music which has 16hz base frequency. And this is why most speaker manufacturers are not even attempting to extend their range all the way to 20hz.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry but you obviously know very little about actual music if you think below 40hz is not part of the frequency response worth reproducing. It's a bit sad really. Any self respecting band that wasn't too busy drinking brandy on their terrace would laugh at this bullshit. Go see Tool when they start touring again. See if you think their sound system stops at 40hz. As if we don't want movie type bass response from music. Really, do you think Dave Matthews would allow his music to roll off at 40hz? Do you think they only play indoors?

Edit: a little less troll on my part--about the organ going to 16hz--that's crazy I didn't know that but it kinda makes sense that if our forefathers only had one instrument available that could get that low that they put them in the cathedrals. I know I know, it's a foregone conclusion that they would but my point is that sub bass is important, So much so that the "ancients" associated it with God.

B00nie said:

I'm sorry but you just don't know what you're talking about

It is not practical to produce sub bass in outdoor concerts. 30-40hz is what you get and that is enough. 20hz is mostly vibration already, on the limit of human hearing. Horn bass like mine will extend below 40hz when many units are combined so they form more effective surface area and due to acoustic coupling they couple more effectively on lowest frequencies. In my personal application I can just boost the lowest octave because I have more than enough headroom for dynamics. It's not practical for me to play even at 50% volume at any time, I mostly use only 10% or less of the SPL available. If you push the sound to around 30% it becomes difficult already to talk without shouting in 5 meters distance.

As I said this part of the discussion was off topic, you were recommended to get near field pro monitors for your desktop and place them to ear level. If you've tried, say, a genelec monitor, you won't miss a subwoofer even though it only extends to 45ish hz. Most people who are fanatic about sub-30hz frequencies do not understand that the main audible part of music and bass happens between 40-150hz and this is the most important frequency range for practical concerns as far as bass dynamics and 'beat' go. It is also common that this kind of people blame frequency extension as the cause for not having a dynamic, tight bass. Very typically they make the mistake of over boosting sub frequencies and creating a boom-box which has no beat and dynamics, just low frequency noise. A good audio setup is balanced, has loads of dynamics and can be played at high levels without the sound becoming irritating. You don't get a dynamic thumping bass with subwoofers. Nope.

Sub bass is only good for movies and special effects, real music contains very little information below 30hz with the exception of organ music which has 16hz base frequency. And this is why most speaker manufacturers are not even attempting to extend their range all the way to 20hz.

Click to expand...

Funny I can produce base down to 15hz with very little effort on hsu vtf15 's and no , they don't vibrate the shit out of the room. Pink Floyd , Enya and Howard Jones have no problem producing bass below 30hz... Where do you think the majority of low end analog synthesizer bass comes from?

The internet is a great place to read and learn ... Actually owning said equipment and testing it for yourself cannot be duplicated on the net... Paper stats, opinion and knowledge of others can only go so far.

I try not to jump into these "discussions" but B00nie's correct about music and sub 30hz (sans organs as he noted). When researching pro amps for my subs it came up that a lot of them roll off ~20hz and some home theater guys use them since they're cheap and having plenty of power but they have a problem with the roll off. They want flat down to like 5hz. I've seen the HT guys hit up manufacturer forums like Crown and ask why they roll off at 20hz. Crown and other pro live guys responded that there isn't any need for sub 30hz in that setting as most live bands don't go any lower than that and that's why they roll off early. It takes a lot of power and a lot of subs to pull off under 30hz well. Anyway this has gotten quite off topic since this is a desktop speaker thread not an outdoor concert live sound thread...

|Tch0rT| said:

It takes a lot of power and a lot of subs to pull off under 30hz well. Anyway this has gotten quite off topic since this is a desktop speaker thread not an outdoor concert live sound thread...

Click to expand...

I'm curious where these discussions are happening with HT guys arguing with crown about 20 hz roll off... Not many people I know use crowns for sub amps... Let alone use crowns period. Plenty of other amps out there that kick their ass for nickels.

Funny my HSU VTF's have no issues going below 30 or 20... I don't have many of them and they certainly don't need a shitload of power either. I think you're simply full of shit.

Archmage said:

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/SPL nomographs.htm

Click to expand...

EXCELLENT LINK! Sorry, I meant "thank you!"

Funny that I've never seen that one. I used to subscribe to SB & have spent a lot of time on SL's site.

Well... you can only talk for so long about desktop speakers, if this is where the action is, so be it. I can tell you that I've heard on the recording end of things, for live indoor concerts of classical music they don't bother with microphones that can go any lower than 40Hz.

Obviously they must need to use some pretty expensive equipment to be able to pick up "sound" that is basically only vibration from a pipe organ. I want to go hear one now.

I don't expect *most* bands go around with equipment that can make the ground move beneath your feet, but I expect *most* big acts do. I can say for sure, having been inside and out of Sunken Gardens Theatre (outdoor) in San Antonio, TX that the in-house system can do it. I've seen boring acts like "The goo-goo dolls" push buttons there that made sub bass rumble through your soul and the water in your tummy jiggle funny. Maybe the place has special acoustic characteristics... but it's not exactly the Hollywood Bowl.

The point is, I can recreate that same sub bass, without making its amplitude such that I can feel it in the ground with an 8" sub in a 10" box. And at any rate the speakers I ended up with ARE near-field monitors, they just happen to also use a 140Hz crossover point and a sealed 8" sub. If using a crossover and a separate sub to reproduce the lowest parts of the frequency range makes the system no longer a "monitoring" system, then oh well. It's being sold as a monitoring system... but it's probably best used as computer speakers.

Holy shit, guys were back on topic, Ima sum up the whole OP question for you right now:
There is no revolution in PC speakers because everyone has a PC now and most people are cheap.

Most people would not pay $500 for PC speakers. They are either "too expensive" or "too cheap". The Hi-Fi crowd is suspicious of the relatively low price and the integrated nature of these boutique systems. The Lo-Fi crowd is allergic to spending money for better sound and stick to the $30-$200 Logitech-Klipsch-Bose desktop systems. There's a big gap between what people are willing to spend on PC speakers and what it costs to make a decent system. Klipsch thinks it can't even afford to put an on/off switch with a mute relay on the ProMedia system. When I saw that it made me want to vomit.

It's true that I don't know much about speaker design, and only just a very little bit about electronics in general. But I've been a performing musician for much of my life--to the point it got to become a drain rather than a joy. It's taken me a while to get back to where I could even sit down and just enjoy listening to music without scrutinizing it. I still do it, but I've got to where I can turn it on and off. I like to think the characteristics of sounds I can't even completely consciously make out , those that are in the 20-40Hz range or above 16kHz, still are coloring the music in an important way--If that's wrong, I can live with being wrong.

Bluesun311 said:

I'm sorry but you obviously know very little about actual music if you think below 40hz is not part of the frequency response worth reproducing. It's a bit sad really. Any self respecting band that wasn't too busy drinking brandy on their terrace would laugh at this bullshit. Go see Tool when they start touring again. See if you think their sound system stops at 40hz. As if we don't want movie type bass response from music. Really, do you think Dave Matthews would allow his music to roll off at 40hz? Do you think they only play indoors?

Edit: a little less troll on my part--about the organ going to 16hz--that's crazy I didn't know that but it kinda makes sense that if our forefathers only had one instrument available that could get that low that they put them in the cathedrals. I know I know, it's a foregone conclusion that they would but my point is that sub bass is important, So much so that the "ancients" associated it with God.

Click to expand...

It's easy to troll when you have no clue on the subject.

You can't dispute several studies on the matter which clearly show that music information below 30-40hz is practically nonexistent. It's not my problem if you fail to understand that and continue your feeble hunt of the useless bottom registry. You do realize that most home speakers roll off around 60hz? Only the largest hi-fi speakers extend all the way to 40hz and there are only a handful of models that go all the way to 20hz. Those are man sized towers with 12-15" drivers.

Venomous said:

Funny I can produce base down to 15hz with very little effort on hsu vtf15 's and no , they don't vibrate the shit out of the room. Pink Floyd , Enya and Howard Jones have no problem producing bass below 30hz... Where do you think the majority of low end analog synthesizer bass comes from?

The internet is a great place to read and learn ... Actually owning said equipment and testing it for yourself cannot be duplicated on the net... Paper stats, opinion and knowledge of others can only go so far.

Click to expand...

You can produce a distorted vibration and indoors. Outdoors your puny sub would sound like an anemic joke. It requires a huge array of large drivers to produce any sorts of meaningfull bass in an outdoor concert.

The internet is a great place to read and learn. So I suggest you to do so and find out that very little information is in music below 30hz. The fact that a syntheziser can produce any wanted frequency does not mean that it's essential to have a frequency response starting from 1hz. Most people who listen to Howard Jones have regular home speakers which roll off at 60hz on average. Some even higher. Adding a subwoofer only makes noise, it doesn't improve the dynamics or overall sound at all.

I can understand that with your limited experience you think you know what you're talking about. But you simply don't.

B00nie said:

It's easy to troll when you have no clue on the subject.

You can't dispute several studies on the matter which clearly show that music information below 40hz is practically nonexistent. It's not my problem if you fail to understand that and continue your feeble hunt of the useless bottom registry. You do realize that most home speakers roll off around 60hz? Only the largest hi-fi speakers extend all the way to 40hz and there are only a handful of models that go all the way to 20hz. Those are man sized towers with 12-15" drivers.

Click to expand...

When is it ever hard to troll B00nie?

I think everyone in this thread sees you as the troll, whether or not you "have a clue"--because you are relentlessly discourteous. I have learned nothing from you, except that organs get real low. I never claimed to "know what I was talking about", in fact I was careful to point out that certain technicalities were "over my head" so I don't know why you are continuing to attack me and repeatedly point out that I am "clueless".

Bluesun311 said:

Well... you can only talk for so long about desktop speakers, if this is where the action is, so be it. I can tell you that I've heard on the recording end of things, for live indoor concerts of classical music they don't bother with microphones that can go any lower than 40Hz.

Obviously they must need to use some pretty expensive equipment to be able to pick up "sound" that is basically only vibration from a pipe organ. I want to go hear one now.

I don't expect *most* bands go around with equipment that can make the ground move beneath your feet, but I expect *most* big acts do. I can say for sure, having been inside and out of Sunken Gardens Theatre (outdoor) in San Antonio, TX that the in-house system can do it. I've seen boring acts like "The goo-goo dolls" push buttons there that made sub bass rumble through your soul and the water in your tummy jiggle funny. Maybe the place has special acoustic characteristics... but it's not exactly the Hollywood Bowl.

Click to expand...

The whole point is that I have found out that most people never have experienced 30hz with any meaningful sound pressure in their lives. So if they one day experience the 'earth moving' huge bass from a concert they make the logical fail to assume the earth moves because there are huge sub frequencies in the air. There aren't.

The equipment is just producing clean undistorted bass at 120db extending to 30hz and that sounds awesome when you compare it to the system that produces perhaps 110db already highly distorted and reverbant with room modes. When you combine the home sub to puny main speakers which do not have the dynamic punch of a massive line array used in concerts, the end result will be a comical mixture of no mid-bass to speak of and an echoing glued on rumble of a subwoofer.

The slam that you feel in your body, all the dynamic bass that you hear in music does not come from below 40hz but above it. I'm not saying it's somehow bad to use an array of several subwoofers to produce 20hz correctly inside a room - what I'm saying is that most people do not have the front end required to handle even the 40-140hz area properly, to match the subwoofers. Once you lack the mid-bass dynamics the subwoofer will just become a glued-on addon that deducts, not adds to the experience.

B00nie said:

The slam that you feel in your body, all the dynamic bass that you hear in music does not come from below 40hz but above it. I'm not saying it's somehow bad to use an array of several subwoofers to produce 20hz correctly inside a room - what I'm saying is that most people do not have the front end required to handle even the 40-140hz area properly, to match the subwoofers. Once you lack the mid-bass dynamics the subwoofer will just become a glued-on addon that deducts, not adds to the experience.

Click to expand...

It's not a slam, bro. It's an earthquake. When bass goes that low it moves through your body and then ends up only in the ground. You make all these assumptions about what I know or don't know and what I've heard or haven't heard. Obviously I've been to live shows that would make you afraid. Also you're making a lot of assumptions apparently about my system. You told me that I've been "directed to purchase nearfield monitors" which I already own. Apparently it bothers you that I also own a subwoofer, though--that seems to have started this stupid argument--so I looked up the specs on my system, it rolls off at 35Hz--so I hope that makes you happy. That's about where it sounds like it still has information, and I'm happy with it--but I know the difference between what my system can do, how low it can go, and what the system at my local outdoor concert theatre is, and they are getting well below 35Hz, and I know what it feels like after having been subjected to more car stereo bullshit than I'd like to admit. These are guys who record albums of bass music specifically designed to test 20Hz and above. They can destroy your eardrums with their dash mounted volume dials.

I'd put money down you've also never been to see an act like The Crystal Method. They use very very low bass at live shows and I saw someone have a seizure in Austin from their tower strobes. Any big techno act like this is going to have subs in their setup... Most of what they are pushing is at 80Hz--the beat. But the 25Hz pulses would definitely be missed from the electronic "organs" kids are using in our annoying new-fangled music, which probably just sounds like bad movie soundtracks to you, since it definitely makes use of sub 40Hz waves.

Venomous said:

I'm curious where these discussions are happening with HT guys arguing with crown about 20 hz roll off... Not many people I know use crowns for sub amps... Let alone use crowns period. Plenty of other amps out there that kick their ass for nickels.

Click to expand...

AVSforum and HomeTheaterShack... There are other pro amps other than Crown, it was an example and plenty of people use their XLS series for subs and mids, highs, or whatever. I don't really know of any other amps that can put out a true 1000 watts into a 4ohm load for $300 (Crown XLS1000). There are plate amps but those are shit. People seem to like Behringer but they're overrated on the power, have loud fans, and aren't the most reliable.

Venomous said:

Funny my HSU VTF's have no issues going below 30 or 20... I don't have many of them and they certainly don't need a shitload of power either. I think you're simply full of shit.

Click to expand...

Ok your HSU VTF-15 does do 15hz. So? My DIY 12's can do 10hz but not at the reference level of 115dB peaks. What you're missing is your HSU VTF-15 cable of 15hz @ 115dB? I don't know since I don't use those subs nor have heard them. Assuming this is your sub:
http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vtf-15h.html

It can't do 20hz at reference of 115dB. However those measurements were probably done in an anechoic chamber. Results in real world testing vary due to difference in the room layout and the room gain. Anyway that's not even taking in account that the frequency response should be as flat as possible. There's nearly a 10dB difference between 16hz and 31.5hz, that's not flat. With that kind of difference 31.5hz would be perceived as twice as loud as 16hz if we could hear 16hz. It takes 10 times the power (watts) to make up for that kind of difference. Again assuming that's your sub and it's using 1400 watts (peak) to make 16hz at 109.3dB it would need 14,000 watts to make up that 10dB difference. This is why when you see the guys who can do under 20hz with any kind of authority they have multiple (4+) large 15"+ woofers with high excursion and multiple 2000+ watt pro amps on them. This is also why you don't see sub 30hz in pro audio. The cost to replicate sub 30hz in a large open area like a concert would be extreme not to mention there just aren't amps powerful enough for that for next to no real world gain in that setting. Well that and it would probably feel like an earthquake and what good is a concert if all the drunks attending have extra help falling down? This stuff has been discussed plenty of times before on other forums.

I'm not knocking your sub, I've heard plenty of good things about HSU for premade subs. You keep acting like we're saying you and your sub are shit. So yeah thanks for thinking I'm full of shit.

Bluesun311 said:

When is it ever hard to troll B00nie?

I think everyone in this thread sees you as the troll, whether or not you "have a clue"--because you are relentlessly discourteous. I have learned nothing from you, except that organs get real low. I never claimed to "know what I was talking about", in fact I was careful to point out that certain technicalities were "over my head" so I don't know why you are continuing to attack me and repeatedly point out that I am "clueless".

Click to expand...

I apologize for my lack of manners. Clueless was indeed a bad choice of words.

What I wanted to point out is that I have used extensive periods of time studying sound reproduction, speaker building and the basic theory of how sound behaves in general. During those studies I stumbled to my own misconcetions which were not dissimilar to yours currently. I too was clueless when I first started this hobby.

I still am clueless, but a bit less clueless than your average Joe.

And thanks |Tch0rT|, that's how it goes. To add to your text: doing 115db and doing 115db _cleanly_ are two whole different ballparks. It's trivial to produce 115dbs of noise, a clean signal then again...

B00nie said:

And thanks |Tch0rT|, that's how it goes. To add to your text: doing 115db and doing 115db _cleanly_ are two whole different ballparks. It's trivial to produce 115dbs of noise, a clean signal then again...

Click to expand...

Yup I was keeping it general, (preaching to the choir here with you B00nie lol) that's why line arrays are awesome. Flatter, cleaner, and louder if designed right. There's no replacement for displacement. That's why dudes like Popalock (AVSforum) and notnyt (AVSforum and [H]) have a shit ton of 18" subs and pro amps, not just because of e-peen and money to burn but because it's the only way to do sub 30hz flat, cleanly, and with authority (reference level and beyond).

See:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1525580/ht-of-the-month-ultimate-bass

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1484131/h...nth-popalocks-bassment-big-screen-bigger-subs

Venomous said:

Funny I can produce base down to 15hz with very little effort on hsu vtf15 's and no , they don't vibrate the shit out of the room.

Click to expand...

Since you want to be mean about it do you have measurement tools, software, and graphs or measurements taken in your room at your listening position to back up your statement (which without is entirely subjective)? I can throw in more like, what's the THD of your sub and amp (and power output) at which frequencies at reference? Unless you have the tools and the know how on using them then what you're talking about is purely conjecture or parroting. We can also refer that as "the blind leading the blind" or "talking out your ass". This goes for anyone (I've been guilty of it in the past and I'm sure it'll probably happen again LOL). Since I started getting tools to measure sound and color it's hard not to notice the "blind leading the blind" in A/V stuff. Our eyes and ears are not objective measurement devices. They're subjective input devices.

Blah... ok... I'll type this as quickly as I can. I have the links ready... may as well.

Producing below 20Hz (not just 30Hz) is not much of a problem in a sufficiently-funded home-theater, esp. with room-gain. Low-tuned vented (or passive radiator) or sealed or Infinite Baffle can do this... Even if you want the system to have the SPL-headroom to handle 115db or even 120db+ transients, it's still doable using multiple subs. You'd just need to look at the measured capabilities of equipment and spend some time measuring and setting up your own room / system. It'll be a big system, as mentioned by others.

Producing high SPL outdoors (depending on how large an outdoor area) below 30Hz would be more difficult, yes. That may require several tapped horns (Danley DTS-10 is mentioned below). It's going to look like a furniture sale.

http://www.hornresp.net/ - modeling program that some people use, mostly for the more common and compact tapped horns (TH).

Some measurements: Check Multi-series charts for distortion vs frequency and note the SPL of each curve (you can also find the waterfall plot and group delay in some of the charts):

[Edited this section]: Some SPL limits using about 10% peak THD as threshold (though I'd prefer 5% peak): Note, this is using the db-level of their SPL curves. Curves are plotted at 90db @ 50hz @ 2 meters, increased in 5db increments. http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=systems&type=0 - This page would give you the max burst / sustained levels using cea 2010 standards, but you'd have to read the data-bass "know-how" tab for details. Click on a specific frequency at the top of the table to produce a ranking.

http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=100 - Here is that VTF15. I would say it can cleanly handle a little more than 105db using either single or double ported mode. That's pretty good.

http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=55&mset=55 - SVS pb13-ultra 15hz mode = 110db, impressive.

http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=4&mset=29 - Danley DTS-10 tapped horn using dual 12's. Great output, but that group-delay and CSD hump at 50-60hz is wretched. 105-110db, limited due to some distortion peaks.

http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=2&mset=34 - same DTS but with LMS-R 12's, same 50-60hz ringing. Can do somewhere between 110-115db, limited by same distortion peaks.

http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=45&mset=42 - LMS 5400 18" DIY tapped horn, bad ringing again. 125-128db output. Good Lord

These tapped horns seem usable below that characteristic (it's expected) ringing. Unfortunately that may mean a 40hz lowpass, making these subbass and infrasound only.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/225042-tapped-front-loaded-horn.html - This is a discussion about the characteristics of different types of horns. It's not that easy to get it right.
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1212465/simple-tapped-horn-tutorial-using-hornresp - and another introducing some design considerations.

As for <30hz content: There is enough of it in the content I already own to warrant consideration. Distortion levels of sufficiently-funded and well-designed home-theaters can remain acceptable even below 20hz, as shown above. It's not just noise or harmonics or room vibration (though that is difficult to avoid and is incited particularly well by low bass). A low-frequency air pressurization can contribute to the visceral / tactile experience, without direct floor-coupling or direct vibration-conduction, in a way that most pro-audio drivers cannot (though a loud pro-audio driver can certainly kick you in the chest).

There even seem to be some differing physiological effects from infrasonic sound (see: (infra)sonic weapons, 17hz tone experiment, the hum, etc). Perhaps the infrasonics also contribute a sense of trepidation paralleling the movie explosion / quake or music beat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlpqBoQ1hoQ - This is a demonstration of the air displacement of the 30mm Xmax 18" in the JTR Pro. The JTR 2400 would probably reproduce low bass a little better because it's tuned lower and is rated as such. The JTR amp seems to work below 20hz. The poster of this video is friends with Popalock.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1439484/music-whit-20hz-bass - someone wanted to make a list of <20hz in music. That's not going to be a long list, but it's there.

In movies: train tracks, explosions, earthquakes... often below 20hz, not just below 30hz.

Having a front-stage capable of producing high SPL is a problem. Generally about 105-110db transients is a good target. Blah...I discussed this a bit in an earlier post. No need to elaborate on the options.

That said, I could enjoy a home-theater without a true subwoofer. 1st world "problem" of little importance I guess...

Mind blown. You guys are smart and polite suddenly. The whole feel of the discourse has changed, and I'm totally sober.

I am less interested in picking apart the graphs and especially the debate about super low freq bass like 15Hz which I think is out of the ballpark as far as what is useful in terms of harmonics-maybe in rock quarries and aquatic studies?

Much more interested in tiny speakers that actually sound good. Some people like miniature ponies and goats, too--but they are essentially useless and purely ornamental--at least my speakers sound good to me. They don't sound like most of my car stereo systems turned out... they sound... in control.

Going from the onboard DAC that the Asus ROG boards use to the Xonar was a weird experience, too... I realize there are "even better" DACs available but they mostly seem to be USB and after my experience with the Klipsch wireless USB DAC I'm frankly terrified of them in general. But I didn't really expect to be "wowed" by the STX at all, but--first off, the noise floor dropped out like the grand canyon when I flipped over to 24-bit from 16.. duh. And then once I got some subtle reverb and the Dolby Pro Logic processing going... I... didn't hate it. I'm usually all about a completely flat EQ setting and no post processing but... this shit just sounds interesting. It doesn't work all the time because sometimes there's already too much reverb or spacialdelay or whatever on a recording, but usually it sounds great. I expected to be totally underwhelmed... by both the speakers and the soundcard actually--just based purely off of how much they cost me--and they have BOTH enhanced my quality of life immensely. That's big for a guy that doesn't feel so hot of late.

Bluesun311 said:

Mind blown. You guys are smart and polite suddenly. The whole feel of the discourse has changed, and I'm totally sober.

I am less interested in picking apart the graphs and especially the debate about super low freq bass like 15Hz which I think is out of the ballpark as far as what is useful in terms of harmonics-maybe in rock quarries and aquatic studies?

Much more interested in tiny speakers that actually sound good. Some people like miniature ponies and goats, too--but they are essentially useless and purely ornamental--at least my speakers sound good to me. They don't sound like most of my car stereo systems turned out... they sound... in control.

Going from the onboard DAC that the Asus ROG boards use to the Xonar was a weird experience, too... I realize there are "even better" DACs available but they mostly seem to be USB and after my experience with the Klipsch wireless USB DAC I'm frankly terrified of them in general. But I didn't really expect to be "wowed" by the STX at all, but--first off, the noise floor dropped out like the grand canyon when I flipped over to 24-bit from 16.. duh. And then once I got some subtle reverb and the Dolby Pro Logic processing going... I... didn't hate it. I'm usually all about a completely flat EQ setting and no post processing but... this shit just sounds interesting. It doesn't work all the time because sometimes there's already too much reverb or spacialdelay or whatever on a recording, but usually it sounds great. I expected to be totally underwhelmed... by both the speakers and the soundcard actually--just based purely off of how much they cost me--and they have BOTH enhanced my quality of life immensely. That's big for a guy that doesn't feel so hot of late.

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that with speakers, you can affect the outcome greatly by simply moving them. If you keep certain guidelines in mind you can make a good speaker sound good or an average speaker to sound average. But with wrong positioning you can make an excellent speaker sound totally crappy.

For example you should never place a speaker close to back wall or corners unless the speaker is specifically designed for that. And if you have the small speakers, you should elevate them above your desktop so that the tweeter of the speakers is at your ear level. And theres much more to it.

B00nie said:

For example you should never place a speaker close to back wall or corners unless the speaker is specifically designed for that. And if you have the small speakers, you should elevate them above your desktop so that the tweeter of the speakers is at your ear level. And theres much more to it.

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm THAT short. They are maybe 6 inches too low. I tried some felt speaker isolators to raise them up a little but they attract dust and cat hair really badly. I am a little uncomfortable about raising them up on my desk for fear of knocking them over. The isolators were cool because they angled them slightly up without making them seem precarious. Not sure what to do. Pretty sure these are fine to wall mount they have that screw opening in the back to do it. Maybe I can find a wall mount that angles? The position I'm in the walls are going to be oblique from the speaker. I'm facing a corner and the sub is definitely amplified because of its position--but it's decent, the acoustics aren't overwhelming at any one frequency from my seating position.

Bluesun311 said:

Yes, I'm THAT short. They are maybe 6 inches too low. I tried some felt speaker isolators to raise them up a little but they attract dust and cat hair really badly. I am a little uncomfortable about raising them up on my desk for fear of knocking them over. The isolators were cool because they angled them slightly up without making them seem precarious. Not sure what to do. Pretty sure these are fine to wall mount they have that screw opening in the back to do it. Maybe I can find a wall mount that angles? The position I'm in the walls are going to be oblique from the speaker. I'm facing a corner and the sub is definitely amplified because of its position--but it's decent, the acoustics aren't overwhelming at any one frequency from my seating position.

Click to expand...

The question is only partly about having them on your ear level (which is preferable) but also to elevate them above your desktop level to minimize desktop reflections.

Archmage said:

That said, I could enjoy a home-theater without a true subwoofer. 1st world "problem" of little importance I guess...

Click to expand...

Yeah most of the dudes that post in this thread probably wouldn't consider my subs to be "true subwoofers":
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1333462/the-new-master-list-of-bass-in-movies-with-frequency-charts

I'm flat +/- 3dB from 25hz to 60hz but below 25hz it drops off like Coffey's sub into the Cayman Trough in the movie The Abyss. There's a ~25dB difference between 16hz and 25hz. Mine are ported to 30hz as I built them around music not movies. I'm much more picky about how music sounds so I don't care so much that I miss out on the 7hz pulse of the infamous "Fucking Irene" scene from Black Hawk Down as long as Dave Lombardo's double bass assault can keep up with my ESL's (though I am talking about 2 different aspects of sound reproduction with this comment, SPL vs transient response, it's a tradeoff with my particular setup I can live with). I also don't use a subsonic filter as I don't listen loud enough to feel like my subs are in danger so anything I get below 25hz is just icing on the cake.

Bluesun311 said:

Much more interested in tiny speakers that actually sound good. Some people like miniature ponies and goats, too--but they are essentially useless and purely ornamental--at least my speakers sound good to me.

Click to expand...

A friend of mine is like that. He likes tiny PC's and tiny Speakers. Personally I don't like small speakers just because I feel like the compromises to get them to sound good are too much of an uphill battle with physics. In general bigger speakers don't have to work as hard to sound as good. As you said if the speakers sound good to you, at the end of the day that's all that matters (and hopefully they make you feel like this: )

Bluesun311 said:

I'm usually all about a completely flat EQ setting and no post processing...

Click to expand...

A lot of people do EQ wrong. They boost instead of cut. Boosting robs your amp of power (see my post of 10dB increase takes 10 times the power). It's best to cut the peaks and usually only to frequencies below 200hz or so. One of the best things I did for my HT/2 channel setup was to get a calibrated USB mic and learn Room EQ Wizard (REW) to cut my peaks under 100hz. Bass integrates so much better.

Older posts in the thread...

Bluesun311 said:

If I have a complaint to make it is that the mids and tweets are so transparent it makes bad recordings worse. Couple totally different examples. I had a scary moment where I thought one of the satellites was damaged while listening to Miles Davis's tune "So What" from the album Kind of Blue--every time the sax would play it got bad whispery distortion with it. The instrument is only being played through one side of the stereo mix and switching the line outs confirmed both speakers produced the distortion from this recording. So it's either the amp channel or the recording. Guess what? Google Play cheaped out on that recording. I found a post from14 years ago someone had the exact same issue trying to demo their system with that cut. The engineer must have transferred the tapes badly and the levels on that saxamaphone are clipping throughout much of that entire album.

Click to expand...

I noticed that flaw in that recording when I got my ESL's. I believe it's bad on "So What" and somewhat on "Flamenco Sketches", the rest of the songs are ok as far as I remember but I haven't listened to that album in a while. I've heard that the CD releases aren't correct like the speed is wrong (I think slightly too fast) and some other issues. I'd read one of the people who recorded it or played in the band absolutely hates the CD versions. So maybe see if you can find a vinyl rip and see if it's better? I have an actual SACD rip of it (thank you fat hackable PS3's lol) but I haven't tested to see if that particular flaw with the distorted instrument rears it's ugly head there too but sadly I think it's the recording. :/ If you want to hear a fubar recording that makes you feel like your speakers are broken give Metallica's Death Magnetic or RHCP's Californication a spin. Rick Rubin should be repeatedly punched in the throat for the SQ of those albums.

To return to the off-topic subject of subsonic sound, most people probably do not understand what they're really asking for.

In the 70's movie studios came up with a great idea. Let's make movie theaters produce sound that movie viewers can actually feel. Cue Sensurround.

Due to several problems with recording technology of the time they could only produce artificially 25hz at 110-120db using horn bass. Multiple horn basses actually.

With development became Sensurround III which saw use in the 1978 hit movie Battlestar Galactiga. It employed 16-25hz effects with the outcome being that many movie goers had to leave the showings prematurely due to nausea caused by the infrasounds.

Loud subsonics is not something I would want to have, especially for longer periods because I know from experience that being exposed to them make you feel sick in no time. Now all those people who brag about having 15hz capability, if they're not getting sick when playing the sound one must ask the question are they really experiencing a clean signal at reference level at those frequencies. If they're not getting physically messed up by the vibration, I'm saying no.

^^^ yeah that's a great aspect to bring up. While I do like loud bass and subsonics it can make me feel odd. Like something is wrong. I've read scientific reports that when people get a sudden feeling of dread or supernatural heebie jeebies of some sorts that's it's really just them picking up on infrasonics.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077192/