What makes a sub musical? (1 Viewer)

[Manuel Delaflor]

Max

Well, of course. And you know why in the first instance? Because there is no objetive meaning for "musical" regarding a sub, all we have is a mix of complex answers from many people, that in the end are just opinions, hardly anything of objective value.

In any case, I sustain my answer. Although they will not sound exactly the same, but both will be enough "musical" if the room and its location are acoustically good.

Dont fight with ideas, when in doubt check with the world.

 

[frank manrique]

The simplest answer to what makes a subwoofer (or any loudspeaker for that matter) "MUSICAL" is MUSIC, of course!... :rolleyes

-THTS

"...hi, my name is Frank...and am an SVS bassaholic..."

 

[John Garcia]

LOL, you beat me to that one by a few minutes.

 

[Brian L]

Hummm...I was thinking a few years at Berkley in Boston or Juliard would also help

BGL

 

[ChrisBee]

The more distortion harmonics it produces. The 'warmer' a sub sounds and the more it muddies the midrange. Even when you've set a very low roll-off point. This is what I would describe as an "unmusical subwoofer".

If you can raise the gain relative to the main speakers without completely ruining acoustic music. Then you are probably in possession of a good subwoofer. Not that you would want to "turn it up" while listening to purely acoustic music though. It will always sound better calibrated "flat".

Electronically amplified music doesn't offer the same reality clues and may well survive a 'hotter' subwoofer setting (to taste).

A good room also helps enormously. Since "overhang" has a similar effect to subwoofer distortion. Ruining the pitch, timing and rhythm. Which is why many stereo music fans hate subwoofers. They simply haven't met a good subwoofer (yet).

ChrisBee

 

[LanceJ]

I think I'm being influenced by the subjectivist rays emanating from those audiophile forums.......

About a third of the way into this thread my eyes started to water so I apologize if I'm repeating something that has already been said.

All the numbers & graphs are great but:

Did anybody ever stop to consider the idea that many music lovers simply LIKE the sound of a subwoofer that is considered to have "tight" and "quick" bass & could care less if it can't reproduce a 20Hz sine wave with .000001%THD?

Ignoring the tiresome semantics issues of those two (IMO) quite descriptive adjectives, a sub that exhibits those qualities and that only reaches to @30Hz may perfectly satisfy many people's bass reproduction desires for music.

And when people bring up the "need" to reproduce church organ music and the rare rock/pop CD that contains actual subsonic(!) bass frequencies, I have to giggle. Come on guys! Really, how many people actually listen to such music AND on such a regular basis that they require a 300lb subwoofer?

 

[Jack Gilvey]

All "musical" means is that someone likes the way it sounds with music. This could mean a very rolled off FR for "tightness", or a huge hump in the "punch" region. Meaningless term, since it's subjective and variable, but one people like to throw around a bunch when all else fails. A comprehensive set of measurements (not the same as "specs") can be valuable if you have some idea of how it relates to sound and don't find it threatening. Like actual speaker designers use.

 

[Nathan W.]

If you like the way your sub contributes to your music listening, then by golly that's a musical sub! (I see Jack has beat me to this point.)

For me, I guess musical means reaching down to 20Hz or so since I really like my music with deep bass, even if it didn't originally have deep bass (a Peavey Kosmos does this for me). Deep bass reproduced cleanly sounds pleasing to my ears when it's presented in a musical (no pun intended) piece, not on it's own.

 

[frank manrique]

quote:
__________________________________________________ ________

Did anybody ever stop to consider the idea that many music lovers simply LIKE the sound of a subwoofer that is considered to have "tight" and "quick" bass & could care less if it can't reproduce a 20Hz sine wave with .000001%THD?
__________________________________________________ ________

Nothing personal, mind you...but what kind of music lovers are those that like to listen to emasculated, testicular fortitude-challenged sound produced by highly handicapped transducers?

Yea...I've heard enough "oohs..." and "aahs..." coming from "music lovers" who claim to like "fast and tight bass," "step and rhythm," as well as other such "high-end audio" ignorant verbiage when listening to their audio systems (some of them mega-bucks set ups powering highly inefficient speakers by 3 watt single-ended tube amps that in turn are equipped with $2500 AC power cords! ) through the years to last me a life time.

Now, it's absolutely true that such "music lovers" have a God-given right to purchase, listen to, and like whatever electronic equipment and speakers they want...but have no business proclaiming publicly that those are accurate ways to reproduce pre-recorded sound whatsoever...least of all with such asinine descriptions.
Oh, and please spare me by not stating that such "audiophiles" use their "gold-gilded" ears to capture sonics other folks (meaning US) can't hear!

What's so wrong with wanting to achieve high fidelity, full range sound reproduction from components capable of doing so (and in the case of subwoofers, with infra bass capability too) and with infinitesimal amounts of TH (and otherwise) distortion?...

-THTS

"...hi, my name is Frank...and am an SVS bassaholic..."

 

[Robert_Dufresne]

Edward

Do you actualy get paid by SVS

 

[frank manrique]

quote:
__________________________________________________ ______

Hummm...I was thinking a few years at Berkley in Boston or Juliard would also help
__________________________________________________ ______

And how!...

-THTS

"...hi, my name is Frank...and am an SVS bassaholic..."

 

[DavidLW]

F=MA- Force is equal to Mass times Acceleration

Increase the Mass and Acceleration must decrease if the Force remains the same.

Increase the Force and Acceleration must increase if Mass stays the same.

If you increase the Mass then you must increase the Force for Acceleration to remain the same.

You can increase Acceleration by decreasing the Mass or Increasing the Force.

Since Mass is more or less a constant with a driver the only way to control Acceleration is with Force. Servo-control is just a way for more control of that Force while lessening the distortion associated with just pumping a lot of Force to a driver to make it respond faster.

The Martin Logan Descent, Depth and Grotto gets my vote for now. These subs were designed to match their line of electrostatic speakers. All of them have some form of servo-control. Servo-control is a generic term to signify that there is some form of feedback to the amp, telling it what the driver is outputting. The amp then compares that with what's being inputted and adjust it's output accordingly. Different companies uses different methods.

Speaking of "fast" subs, way back when when Magneplanar made the Tympany IV's, some die hard High Enders were known to use the bass panel of these planar speakers as subs. I never heard them (other than what they were design for) but they were supposely very "fast" and "musical". But I'd bet that they still probably wouldn't play loud enough for HT.

The "speed" of a speaker is not how fast it goes but rather how fast it goes fast and how fast it can change direction. It's acceleration and deceleration in a car. A Porsche and Ford SUV may both go 65 MPH but a Porsche gets there (from a stop) in under 4 seconds while the SUV may take over 10 seconds. And the Porsche will come to a stop a lot quicker. In a speaker set up your 6" or 8" driver on your main will play a portion of the bass range. Your 10" or 12" sub will overlaps some of this range. If your sub can't keep up with the your main then you need a "faster" sub (or slower mains). My mains are eletrostatic and most subs designed to keep up with them uses servo-control to help "speed" them up.

"Musical" in subs is nothing more than how well they match the speakers you're listening to music with. If you're using a pair of Cerwin-Vega with 15" woofers as your main then a sub designed for HT may be "musical" enough. However, if your listening to music on planars like Maggies or Martin Logans or very "musical" box speakers like Vandersteen, Thiel or B&W then most subs meant for HT will sound too "slow" and thus not "musical". Bass is bass when you're only comparing frequency. But eventually that bass has to blend with what's coming out of your main. Even if you can't hear the difference when listening to the subs by themselves, they will often reveal a difference when they're heard with the main. And it matters more for music than for HT.

 

[dave alan]

TV,

Sorry for being vague. I threw the L/T circuit in the paragraph as it allows for greater extension in a smaller box, and much more power is required. Thanks for catching those points.

To get it right in my own head...you would exclude a HPF in a ported sub that you might design with a 16 Hz tune? I had thought that going for the highest output at 16 Hz would leave the driver exposed to serious damage immediately below that point.

EJM,

Of course you are correct. Sealed subs and HPF protection are not mutually exclusive. In the case where the box is large enough to achieve a low 'Q' response without EQ and the amp is powerful enough, or the driver lacks the excursion capability, a HPF would be prudent.

With the advent of the Linkwitz Transform EQ circuit, it makes little sense to me to go that route because the box is much bigger than it needs to be and the filter defeats the purpose of the lower GD, lower phase response alignment.

My own feeling is that the length of room decay is directly proportional to the late release of the sub's stored energy, but I don't know the answer to that question. Still, I'm tending toward an answer of yes...it's audible.

 

[frank manrique]

Question:

...won't pitch rather than "speed" is what actually produce sonic changes in sound reproducing equipment?

I humbly submit taking a vinyl LP transcription system as an example of what I mean by the above and am attempting to describe with the following:
slowdown or speedup its normal assigned rotational rate and we wind up changing the pitch of sound (by whatever degree, i.e., by a semitone, etc.).
The same thing occurs with anything that has rotational characteristics (like audio cassettes, open reel tape decks, etc.), so...

This doesn't seem to be the case with speakers at all as I've never heard one single case where they sound so slow as to cause tonal pitch changes...not two-ways, three-ways or any other dynamic type transducers...or "full range" planars, electrostatics, ribbons...nor headphones, tiny table radio or portable CD player speakers either.
What does change is TONAL characteristics (i.e., sounding bright, dull, muddy, tizzy, piercing, bloated, flat...take your pick) but then that's hardly speed-related, yes?...

-THTS

"...hi, my name is Frank...and am an SVS bassaholic..."

 

[Nathan W.]

As has already been pointed out, 20Hz is 20Hz. If a driver receives a 20Hz signal and thusly puts out a 20Hz sound wave, how can it be "slow"? Some believe that a larger driver will overtravel the point at which it should have changed direction. Even if this was true, the larger driver reproducing the 20Hz signal and overtraveling while doing it would simply translate into a more efficient driver IMO.

20 cycles per second is exactly 20 cycles per second. What's that? The larger driver is moving too far you say? So it's slow you say!!?? Even though it has matched the speed of the smaller driver!!??

Hmmm. It just sounds louder to me.

 

[WayneO]

Thank god I don't waste my life with these arguements that never solve anything..........good luck.

 

[DavidLW]

It's not how "fast" the driver is moving WHEN playing a 20hz signal but how "fast" the driver responds and actually begins to play the 20hz signal. And just as important, how "fast" it stops trying to play the 20hz signal after the signal has stopped. The mass of the driver, the elastic property of the cone suspension and the air in the enclosure are all mechanical resistance that must be overcome in order for any driver to play a 20hz signal. And once playing a 20hz signal, the energy associated with the inertia of the moving mass of the driver, the compression and decompression of the air in the enclosure and again the elastic property of the cone suspension must be dissipated in order for the cone to come to a complete stop. How well and "fast" it does this contributes to the "speed" of the sub. Like I stated eariler, there is a difference between going from 0 to 65mph in a Porcshe vs a SUV. Even if at the end you're doing 65mph in both vehicles. It's not how fast you go but how fast you go fast.

 

[ScottCHI]

what argument?

 

[LanceJ]

Nothing......if that's what you think is important. I mean this and I'm not trying to be a smart-ass.

But just like others who think cramming a 300HP engine into a Civic for street use is overkill and have no need for such extreme performance, there are also people with some small sats w/5" woofers who simply want to fill in the bottom end of their system, don't want to buy two big floorstanders & think a good 8" or 10" sub can do this for them (and such a subwoofer can!). And, do this without rearranging all their furniture to do so. And without depleting their checking account. Or having to hire a glazier to come out and fix what their sub did while watching LOTR.

I certainly don't go around telling people who own Corvettes that they should be ashamed of their purchase, but I would feel irritated if they came up to me and said my Celica GT-S was worthless because it only had 135HP. Sure it's slower--not SLOW, just slower--than their vehicle, but it's still fun to drive, know what I mean?

I usually try to keep my shut during these types of discussions because they are SO subjective, but the pressure just got the best of me this time.

And to help lighten things up, here's a funny cat that's in a reeeeeeal good mood while listening to some Dave Brubeck & after getting into some......well, you'll find out.

 

[ChrisBee]

Hi

Bass sounding slow seems simple enough to me.

Take the obvious case of a room with a distinctive boom at one particular frequency. Every time this boom is excited it slows the music. Because it introduces a slowly decaying false note. One which has no place in the music at all. The mind locks onto this and loses the musical plot. :b

Think about the same thing happening to a subwoofer that introduces false pitch notes by virtue of high distortion. Every time such a false note is introduced into the music the mind registers the fact and struggles to keep up with what's really happening. .b

Take the case of the typical cheap subwoofer with a distinctive hump in the upper bass. Every time the bass guitar plays the right note "the hump" responds with an overblown note. The room probably responds in kind by further exaggerating the loudness of the note. The mind locks onto the resulting boom (and slow decay) and asks itself what's happening. Instead of enjoying the pace and flow of the music. :b

Can't trust your ears on reproduced music? Back to the real world then:
You are standing listening to a brass band in the town square. It sounds great. You smile and you're tapping your foot to a crisp rendition of a favorite number. Then the tuba suddenly barges in. He's arrived late. Much the worse for wear after an all night stag party. He takes his seat but is obviously struggling to keep up. Parp! Parp! Parp! In all the wrong places! Now where is the rhythm? The musical pace? The pleasure in the music vanishes and the crowd moves on muttering to itself. :b

BTW. I'm on of those very odd people who like classical organ music. I wouldn't be without 16Hz now that I have it. Thanks to SVS and one of those slow, old reflex enclosures. You know them: The things that don't do transient response. That must have a huge one note hump from that huge port farting away completely undamped most of the time. And must distort like a trashcan on steroids without a servo or acoustic suspension to keep a tight reign on that massive 12" driver.

Listening to music without a good subwoofer. Is like listening without your hearing aid when you are deaf.

Regards
ChrisBee