Harman/Samsung Buys an Empire in Sound United From Masimo

[Verdinut]

Let's not ignore that a great portion of the youth never went to an acoustic instrument concert, or a performance of a full symphony orchestra or of an opera featuring singers who don't need amplification of their voice. On top of that, a great percentage have been listening to MP3 recordings without the absence of audible distortion. Actually, they don't know how good it is to listen to high quality recordings with good quality electronics and speakers. Those are reasons explaining to a great extent, a lack of interest in high fidelity and the reduction in sales of decent quality audio stuff.

 

[TLS Guy]

I am going to heartily disagree with this. While it may be true for you, it’s not true for everyone. I may concede that you shouldn’t chase teen frequencies at the expense of the overall system. But really? 25-30hz extension should be ignored? Cmon mark, have some fun.

I'm talking about a single pair of speakers and not subs. Before the days of subs many speakers had F3s in the 25 to 30 Hz range. Once subs came along F3 went up into the 45 to 55 Hz range making subs close to mandatory. So this affects WAF.

The lowest frequency of the double bass is 41 Hz, and some double basses with extensions can reach 30 Hz.

Some orchestral bass drums can reach as low as 20 Hz. So that is why an F3 of 30 to 25 Hz is adequate because of room gain. The fundamental of the lowest note of a 13' organ stop is 16 Hz, but all the others are above that.

Movies are now crazy with distracting gratuitous bass. Now I give you there is the odd scene that makes deep bass and subs impressive. However I now find movies with repeated gratuitous bass where it adds nothing to the story and is actually distracting.

Those effects rattle the room and even the crockery in the cabinets downstairs.

Deep bass really permeates and is another negative for spouses.

So for most music the lower limits I suggested are adequate and make for excellent reproduction in the home assuming good engineering.

As I have said many times before, subs are the least important item in an audio system. On these forums and others you would think it was the most important speaker and item in audio system, when it is in fact by far the least important.

 

[highfigh]

I'm talking about a single pair of speakers and not subs. Before the days of subs many speakers had F3s in the 25 to 30 Hz range. Once subs came along F3 went up into the 45 to 55 Hz range making subs close to mandatory. So this affects WAF.

The lowest frequency of the double bass is 41 Hz, and some double basses with extensions can reach 30 Hz.

Some orchestral bass drums can reach as low as 20 Hz. So that is why an F3 of 30 to 25 Hz is adequate because of room gain. The fundamental of the lowest note of a 13' organ stop is 16 Hz, but all the others are above that.

Movies are now crazy with distracting gratuitous bass. Now I give you there is the odd scene that makes deep bass and subs impressive. However I now find movies with repeated gratuitous bass where it adds nothing to the story and is actually distracting.

Those effects rattle the room and even the crockery in the cabinets downstairs.

Deep bass really permeates and is another negative for spouses.

So for most music the lower limits I suggested are adequate and make for excellent reproduction in the home assuming good engineering.

As I have said many times before, subs are the least important item in an audio system. On these forums and others you would think it was the most important speaker and item in audio system, when it is in fact by far the least important.

When I started selling audio, we noticed that as people grew older and 'grew up', they wanted less bass. It was fun when they were younger, but they eventually realized that the way they were listening, the sound wasn't balanced and the old way was actually annoying. They also realized that they didn't need to peel paint with SPL.

Some grow out of it, some don't.

 

[Big-Q]

I think this is a better situation for the brands. The best situation would have been to just stay Sound United and not take the silly Masimo diversion.

 

[TLS Guy]

I think this is a better situation for the brands. The best situation would have been to just stay Sound United and not take the silly Masimo diversion.

Not that simple. Sound United was owned by a private equity company controlled largely by Mitt Romney, and they wanted to cash out. Masimo paid far too much for it, and had not clue how to properly run it.

 

[lovinthehd]

Not that simple. Sound United was owned by a private equity company controlled largely by Mitt Romney, and they wanted to cash out. Masimo paid far too much for it, and had not clue how to properly run it.

The Bain/Romney buyout of D&M Holdings was before a different group, DEI (under another politician, Darryl Issa) held and formed Sound United.