Is a flat extension to 20hz or less impossible to achieve in average sized rooms?

[yepimonfire]

I can't possibly disagree more. Mark Seaton has done many listening tests comparing 20hz roll off vs 5-10hz roll off and all of his audiances either prefered or vastly prefered the lower extension.

I can only assume that you've just never experienced ultra low frequency properly set up.

I've spent a lot of time dissecting music and movie content just to find out what's really in them frequency wise and TLS is right. Besides pipe organs, the majority of music does not require an infrasonic response or even a 20hz response. If you listen to a lot of rock/pop with electric guitars/bass guitars, drums, etc, you don't even need more than about 35-40hz. While some movies do indeed utilize LFE below 20hz, the majority of that "rumble" is at about 30-50hz.

Even with instruments that have fundamentals or sub harmonics down in the 20s and teens are so many dB down that unless you're listening at a 100dB volume, which most of us don't, it's below our threshold of hearing.

I'm curious on the methodology used in those tests, was it the same subwoofer at the same volume? Unless it was and the roll off was electronically induced using a 12dB an octave high pass filter I'm going to guess they simply preferred the better subwoofer.

While humans can hear down to 8hz, our sensitivity at frequencies below 40-50hz drops off substantially. Add that to the fact most content at very low frequencies is 12dB or even 24 dB down and it's simply below our threshold of hearing, unless of course you're listening at 90dB or more where the ears frequency response starts to flatten out.

I can't possibly disagree more. Mark Seaton has done many listening tests comparing 20hz roll off vs 5-10hz roll off and all of his audiances either prefered or vastly prefered the lower extension.

I can only assume that you've just never experienced ultra low frequency properly set up.

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[its phillip]

For an interesting read check out this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/113-s...-install-exceptional-service-mark-seaton.html

thebland had Mark Seaton come by to help set up his Quested speakers and 6 Seaton Submersives (HPs & F2s). Very nice

 

[yepimonfire]

Which is where the problem arises. It's impractical to place the kind of room treatment required to suppress standing waves at 30,40,or 50hz. Unfortunately corner bass traps aren't going to do much below maybe 70-100hz. In order to absorb sub bass frequencies you'd need very thick traps placed a good distance from the walls, taking up already limited space. Without room treatment, the other option would be 4 subs placed in each corner and individually equalized to have as flat a response as possible. Considering the size of subs that can achieve infrasonic response with authority, this again, becomes impractical.

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[yepimonfire]

Well I wouldn't. Mark is just truly misguided about this. For any type of music listening chasing those frequencies has zero merit. I have no interest blowing out my windows to realistically reproduce an explosion!

There is just so much bunk around about subwoofers its tiresome. There probably is no device in audio right now that is more misused and also associated with erroneous concepts. If 0.1% of people using subwoofers have properly balanced bass I would be shocked.

Realistically reproducing an explosion would require spl levels high enough to deafen and kill you, shrapnel aside, it's the massive wave of rapidly increasing air pressure that destroys things when things go boom.

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[Bucknekked]

The only correction I would offer is that low frequencies can't contribute to spaciousness. Bass sounds the same from everywhere, at least typical subwoofer frequencies, and definitely the frequencies we are discussing. Bass can be a part of a complex sound that holds spatial cues, but if you stripped all of the upper frequencies off that sounds and left only subwoofer-band bass, there wouldn't be anything that would give you an idea of where it is coming from. The things that determine spaciousness, outside of cues in the sound itself like reverberation or echoes, is the shape of the head, the shape of your ears, and the time differences in the arrival of sound at each ear, and the long wavelengths of low enough frequencies negates all of that.

humor is so hard. Yes, I agree, the improvements are "specious" not "spacious". The "spaciouness" is a "specious" claim. I think you get the idea.

 

[Bucknekked]

There is just so much bunk around about subwoofers its tiresome. There probably is no device in audio right now that is more misused and also associated with erroneous concepts. If 0.1% of people using subwoofers have properly balanced bass I would be shocked.

I would agree on the culture of the subwoofer. I think inside our hobby there is a culture surrounding subwoofers that definitely is a little wobbly. As a relative newb, I hear more claims and acclaim for subs than just about any other piece of the solution. The saving grace for me is I have learned which voices on AH have a fixed agenda and an axe to grind, and which are pretty much driven by factual elements.

On this thread, we have both parties. There are voices here expressing reasonable positions, based on data. There are voices in this thread which are pretty fast and loose with claims and acclaim. It seems whatever is hot in the hobby (selling, getting attention, the next best thing) will attract the lunatic fringe. I appreciate AH because it gives me exposure to the reasonable voices. You know who you are.

 

[its phillip]

The fact is that there are movies available with content at ultra low frequencies. Some people would like to reproduce said content. It's not crazy.

http://data-bass.ipbhost.com/index....-thread-films-games-music-etc/page-7#entry245

 

[Bucknekked]

The fact is that there are movies available with content at ultra low frequencies. Some people would like to reproduce said content. It's not crazy.

http://data-bass.ipbhost.com/index....-thread-films-games-music-etc/page-7#entry245

that's fine with me.