Can a woofer produce mid bass better than a subwoofer?

[Inertia]

I am going to have some nice DIY towers.. these to be exact:
http://www.geocities.com/cc00541/Statements.html

The man that designed these towers says that these towers produce bass from say 40hz to 80hz better than any sub made. I have a great sub... the kappa perfect sub everyone here knows so well. Is there any truth to this? Should I run the towers from 40hz and up and let the sub do 40hz and below or should I just stick with the usual 80hz? Thanks in advance to anyone who can clear this up!

 

[markw]

In that range, a lot has to do with room placement. The mid-bass might better integrate with the rest of the range if the positioning is correct. The low bass is a separate issue and proper placement might be/will be different than for the mid bass.

Generally, I've found that the lower the crossover, the better off one is. At least for non-HT usage where the mains run full range.

Of course, if you're running the mains as small, all bets are off.

 

[Inertia]

Well i normally run my sub at 80hz. So are you saying my sub can handle the upper end (40 to 80hz) just as good as the towers if placed correctly?

 

[sholling]

I like to cross over as low as possible, My TX-NR906 allows my to set a different crossover point for each pair. My mains are rated down to 35hz so I crossover at 40hz. I feel that gives the best reproduction for music. I'm also not one to second guess a good speaker designer. Most test the heck out of their products. My center and surrounds don't go as low so they crossover at 80hz.

 

[Warpdrv]

Horse Hockey....

Those Statements looks really nice and have been measured to perform very very well, I would love to build a pair for myself, maybe when I have more time....

Regardless.... I love bass and my Studio 100's perform pretty good down low, but I'm still crossing my subs over at 100... they can handle and perform far better then any tower speaker in that area then any speaker - especially with 4000w behind each of them.... Why stress out a tower that will be pushing the limits to reach that low, when subs can handle this job effortlessly....

Take the load off the mains and they will sing all the more...

Just make sure you have subs that do really well in the upper bass region .

 

[jostenmeat]

Take the load off the mains and they will sing all the more...

Just make sure you have subs that do really well in the upper bass region .

And also make sure to place them close to the speakers. I would bet that every (male) audioholic could sing down to 100hz, if not considerably lower. I would not recommend such a high xover if the sub is far away from the speakers.

I wish my sub was closer to my speakers.

 

[fredk]

Why stress out a tower that will be pushing the limits to reach that low

If the tower is properly designed, why would you be stressing it out? To make a realistic judgement on a set of towers I would think that you have to know the capabilities of the driver.
also, since the room has as much influence as the drivers in that frequency range, I would think that you would also need to measure to see if the mains will deliver that low as positioned in the room.

From an AVSforum posting I found it interesting that Bosso uses an MBM to augment his towers and more than capable subs for best in room response in his setup.

Inertia. I think your best bet is to try different combinations, measure in room response, and make your decision based on that.

 

[lsiberian]

Kappas vs Towers?

Kappas will own the Towers. Remember they were actually designed to produce the frequencies your talking about removing from them. WE are cheating to get them low. But the CMMD drivers are very low distortion and probably superior to most loud speaker drivers. You will still want to cross at 80hz or lower to avoid the port resonance issues. But unless you got some insane towers let the kappas take care of the bass.

 

[Warpdrv]

If the tower is properly designed, why would you be stressing it out? To make a realistic judgement on a set of towers I would think that you have to know the capabilities of the driver.
also, since the room has as much influence as the drivers in that frequency range, I would think that you would also need to measure to see if the mains will deliver that low as positioned in the room.

From an AVSforum posting I found it interesting that Bosso uses an MBM to augment his towers and more than capable subs for best in room response in his setup.

Inertia. I think your best bet is to try different combinations, measure in room response, and make your decision based on that.

You make good points, but it takes far less power & excursion to reproduce the midrange and the upper end of upper bass, and my towers drivers really don't need to work that hard even if they are capable of doing so.

Also, one point I guess I left out here.... I like to listen sometimes at extreme SPL's and if my subs can do this region better, and I get better measurements when I allow them to run this range.....

 

[SilverStar]

In that range, a lot has to do with room placement. The mid-bass might better integrate with the rest of the range if the positioning is correct. The low bass is a separate issue and proper placement might be/will be different than for the mid bass.

Generally, I've found that the lower the crossover, the better off one is. At least for non-HT usage where the mains run full range.

Of course, if you're running the mains as small, all bets are off.

True I have a bass reflex speaker system and i had them stacked on top of other speakers...and I rearranged it slightly higher and they're WAY louder than the 12" woofers i have...bass Reflex are only 8"...

 

[Inertia]

From what everyone is saying i will cross the towers at 80hz. Ever since I got the kappa perfect sub I have been blown away by it. I will have another one in the next few months as well.

 

[WmAx]

I am going to have some nice DIY towers.. these to be exact:
http://www.geocities.com/cc00541/Statements.html

The man that designed these towers says that these towers produce bass from say 40hz to 80hz better than any sub made. I have a great sub... the kappa perfect sub everyone here knows so well. Is there any truth to this? Should I run the towers from 40hz and up and let the sub do 40hz and below or should I just stick with the usual 80hz? Thanks in advance to anyone who can clear this up!

Sorry, but this is more nonsense. A subwoofer, if properly designed and built, will produce mid-bass as good as any woofer. This also presumes the sub driver has low enough inductance to respond to the bandwidth of relevance(which most do) discussed here. The Kappa Perfect design, if you built it exactly to avaserfi's instructions and used the internal acoustic dampening that he specified; it will respond perfectly/transparently up to about 100-105Hz. Of course, to get perfect midbass, you would need two of these subs: one to place near each main channel. The wavelength of this higher bass range is too short to depend on a single sub-woober crossed over at 100Hz in a room. This will cause issues.

My studio monitor system uses Kappa Perfect 10" drivers for the woofers (up to 105Hz crossover point to the mid-bass drivers) and it produces absolute transparent sound across the entire spectrum. It is a reference level monitor system that can easily exceed almost anything at any price for the purposes of neutral monopole near field monitoring. If I had any valid reason to suspect any type of deficiency I would not use the sub drivers up to this frequency.

Subs don't sound that good crossed at 80-100Hz for music ONLY when a single unit is used instead of at least a pair(to deal with the wavelength issue mentioned above) or when the subwoofer is not designed properly to transparently reproduce the upper bass range. This problem may extend to a large number of subs I suppose, as hardly any even use the proper internal acoustic absorption, which is critical when you have a medium to large size cabinet. On top of that, very few people use proper sub pairs, and even fewer use the proper active crossover system that can be adjusted for ideal integration.

-Chris

 

[WmAx]

You make good points, but it takes far less power & excursion to reproduce the midrange and the upper end of upper bass,

For music, the mid-bass range has equal or greater power as compared to the bass range. This is clear from statistical analysis of random music.

Now, subs may require more 'amplifier power' if they are of lower sensitivity as compared to the mid-bass speakers. But if both have the same sensitivity, then you need just as much(or more) amplifier power for the mid-bass range for music. The only other time bass demands more power (even if sensitivity is equal to the mid-bass drivers) is if someone runs their subwoofer(s) using excessive gain relative to flat/neutral balance to the mid-bass spectrum.

-Chris

 

[no. 5]

The man that designed these towers says that these towers produce bass from say 40hz to 80hz better than any sub made.

"Better" by what parameters? Are they better because he says so, or does he have relevant data?

As was brought up earlier, room effects at this frequency range cannot be ignored, so even if what the designer says is true for free space, the room, speaker position and listening position can very easily change things immensely.

 

[Inertia]

no. 5: I am not sure what he meant by better because he didn't give any relevant data.... I will ask him.

 

[Inertia]

This what Jim wrote me in a PM today...


The only data I have is my ears and dozens of speakers with several sub combination. Smaller drivers simply have less distortion which equates to cleaner, tighter bass particularly sealed.

Think about this. The Statements have a F3 od 50 Hz. sealed with a slow rolloff due to the sealed 2nd order roll off inherent to sealed designs. Almost all subs are designed for low bass from 50 Hz on down. That's what they do best.

I've heard some really good subs and none were better than the Statements from 50 Hz. on up. That's the room boom frequencies. Try it and if you don't like it, cross it higher. I've found the best place to cross a sub to the Statements is in the 40 Hz.-50 Hz. range with a 24 db crossover.

DIY speaker building is a lot about diving in and doing it. If you don't like something, it can always be changed because you built it. Don't over analyze it or you'll suffer from analysis paralysis.

Jim

 

[lsiberian]

This what Jim wrote me in a PM today...


The only data I have is my ears and dozens of speakers with several sub combination. Smaller drivers simply have less distortion which equates to cleaner, tighter bass particularly sealed.

Think about this. The Statements have a F3 od 50 Hz. sealed with a slow rolloff due to the sealed 2nd order roll off inherent to sealed designs. Almost all subs are designed for low bass from 50 Hz on down. That's what they do best.

I've heard some really good subs and none were better than the Statements from 50 Hz. on up. That's the room boom frequencies. Try it and if you don't like it, cross it higher. I've found the best place to cross a sub to the Statements is in the 40 Hz.-50 Hz. range with a 24 db crossover.

DIY speaker building is a lot about diving in and doing it. If you don't like something, it can always be changed because you built it. Don't over analyze it or you'll suffer from analysis paralysis.

Jim

I agree doing it will teach you far more. But labor takes time. And no one wants to waste their time.

 

[Inertia]

So I guess i should just experiment and see what I like I guess.

 

[TLS Guy]

So I guess i should just experiment and see what I like I guess.

While you are about it, I would try setting your towers to large and setting the sub crossover at the F3 of the towers X2. Then shelve the subs in gradually. That often produces the best results for music.

 

[lsiberian]

So I guess i should just experiment and see what I like I guess.

.

People can tell us what they know till they are blue in the face, but until we try it out. We really have no idea.