Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Silly Bass thread

I think you have a lot to learn about acting older than 12.

I think we should all refrain from posting unless it is in some way helpful.

Or funny.

In either case, this last volley has been neither.

People...please....This insignificant sniping at each other will accomplish nothing than to alienate those who are already part of the community and turn off those outside who may be looking for information.
Between this thread and the spade termination thread, I know I have heard enough...

Play nice.

WhatFurrer

on a happier note...thanks Austinbirdman. Although I have read a few of Brian Florian's posts (articles?) on other forums, I had not read the crossover one. Thanks!

Sure thing. I thought it was a well-reasoned article - but I'm not sure I agree. Still experimenting. What he suggests (all speakers on small regardless of size, crossover set to THX regulation around 80 Hz) seems fine for HT, but I'm not sold on it for music. But then, with bass capable speakers, I'm not yet sold on using a subwoofer for music anyway. (I only bought my first subwoofer recently, so the experience is new to me.) Using a small - high crossover configuration seems to work on some music, but so far I've noticed this set-up can also make my M60s sound isolated and tinny while the bass is too pronounced. This can probably be fixed by a few days of tinkering with placement and settings. I read another article contrary to Florian (more proof that a little knowledge is dangerous) that questions the use of subwoofers for music because of the inevitable jarring of phase and timbre. It's over my head, scientifically, but it's exactly what my wife said, in her own way, when she first heard my attempts to integrate the HSU STF-2 with our M60s. The brief article is here for those interested:

• Pitch Timbre and Quality vs. the Subwoofer, by Jan Plummer

Here's the writer's main point:

ADDING A SUBWOOFER

When an attempt is made to add a subwoofer to a system these principles come into play. Although the subwoofer is producing the fundamentals and some harmonics from a recording; the time or phase delay resulting from the alignment and mass differential (relative to the main speakers) causes the sounds from the subwoofer to become unrelated to those of the main speakers. This occurs even though the sounds were in sync and harmonically related when they electrically entered the respective loudspeakers. Unlike the unpleasant sounds described above which are distinct sound sources, the phase differential created makes all sounds that need both speakers to be unnatural and unpleasant. The addition of a subwoofer using existing technologies requires a greater mass and /or a different operating alignment from the mains and naturally perplexes the acoustic summation at the ear. The generally autonomous and high levels of special effects in home theater make subwoofers more effective in this application. When subwoofers are used to produce natural or musical sounds the phase errors contribute and cause annoying sound at the ear. Also when the fundamentals and harmonics are present and in sync, the required volume for pitch delineation is much less. A small speaker needs an equally small low mass subwoofer operating with less cone motion to assure that the fundamentals appear first as they naturally should. The ear actually prefers to synthesize the fundamental rather than interpret poorly aligned subwoofers. This is why audiophiles don’t add subwoofers to their systems preferring instead the natural roll off of the single smaller bass unit.

The second-to-last sentence is especially interesting, "The ear actually prefers to synthesize the fundamental ...." I've read elsewhere, and even in college psych if I recall correctly, that our ears are great at intuiting information that is not there but that we expect to be there. In other words, if all the anticipated sounds of a field are not present, our active imagination will substitute some of the sounds to round it out in our minds. This is the sonic equivalent of an optical illusion. Apparently this is one reason that bookshelf speakers, and even little old computer speakers, can sometimes sound good to our ears -- because our minds supply the missing information. I gather a problem with integrating subwoofers to music can be that in place of the pleasing sounds that our mind is willing to create for us, we substitute an actual set of low frequencies from the subwoofer, and these can often be out-of-sync in phase, timbre, and volume from the main source of sound, the main source of the sonic illusion. Great main speakers aren't just accurate, after all, they are also great illusionists. Maybe I'll invite more thought on this in a "life without subwoofers" thread.

Birdman

Now this thread has truly become fascinating.

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I've read elsewhere, and even in college psych if I recall correctly, that our ears are great at intuiting information that is not there but that we expect to be there.

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Absolutely. The brain anticipates as it always does. The expectation of something creates the ensuing impression or response elicited by the trigger. Does anyone remember Pavlov's dog?
Note how this same principle of the human imagination will also come into play while auditioning audio equipment. The same principle in which many audiophiles refuse to believe exists, and as such, they continue to 'audition' components and compare them descriptively simply by walking into different stores or friends' homes and casually listening to things.
Illusionists indeed!!
Spiff gave a great description earlier today about his thoughts on several speaker sets. I loved his wording. If all audio reviews were similar, i would pay alot more attention to what they said and would probably buy alot more audio review magazines.

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(all speakers on small regardless of size, crossover set to THX regulation around 80 Hz) seems fine for HT, but I'm not sold on it for music.

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In regards to the subwoofer addition, i personally agree with you here, although i understand the rationale and do not disagree with the material from those articles. The best sound that i've found with my EP350 and M60s is to use the sub primarily for a HT application. I have the M60s set to 'large' in my receiver and have turned the EP350 crossover to about 50Hz on the dial (how accurate that really is, i'm not sure but it makes sense according to the relative rolloff at the lower end for M60s based on the NRC graph for the closest brethren, the M80s).
For music i found the sub sound to be very intrusive and rather unpleasant, similar to the description from the article. I tried tweaking position, gain and crossovers to no avail. Ultimately i wanted a sub for HT but NEEDED a sub for music that contains a lower bass level beyond the reasonable depth that the M60s can attain (i.e. notes in organ music...some of my wife's favorite material especially around Christmas...British vocal choirs and all). I found the 50Hz cross on the EP350 works best and i 'found' that point simply by listening to music and slowly turning down the cross notch by notch until it blended well with the M60s.
Chances are i may have to modify that again if i move the setup to another room and change the seating distance along with room acoustics.
There is no set point that works 100% everytime. The THX recommendation is only a starting point, not a be-all-end-all solution to the crossover setting and subwoofer use.

In reply to:

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Spiff gave a great description earlier today about his thoughts on several speaker sets. I loved his wording. If all audio reviews were similar, i would pay alot more attention to what they said and would probably buy alot more audio review magazines.

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Now I'm blushing.

I too usually set my crossover at 80hz for movies, but crank it down to 60 or even 40 when listening to music.

Thanks for the crossover suggestions chesseroo and spiffnme. Being new to this piece of equipments makes it an adventure. Just after I posted that link and note this morning my wife called me at work to ask how in god's name she could shut off the subwoofer, as it was driving her crazy listening to our CD changer (John Hiatt and Jimmie Dale Gilmore in there as she called). I had the M60s on large and xover hand-tuned to about 55 Hz, but because I don't have a variable LFE, I have to use the BASS OUT: BOTH setting to acheive this, so I imagine what was bugging her was a boomy overlap between the M60s and the sub. I'll have to take it down a notch yet, see if that works. Tonight I'll try 50 and below as a xover point.

I wish I knew some way to rig-up a variable bass management option with my Yamaha RV-1105. It seems I can only tune the sub when the BOTH setting is in effect, since the configution MAINS: LARGE / BASS OUT: SWFR does not send any signal to the sub. I only get signal to the sub if the mains are at SMALL (creating a teceiver-level fixed xover at 90 Hz) or SWFR: BOTH.

If I'm not mistaken, one workaround is to wire the mains through the STF-2 and use its variable bass management. Is this option (wiring mains through sub) a path to degradation? I can't try it at home without getting some new speaker cable.

Birdman

PS - On the positive side, playing around with the sub has made me really appreciate the fast, clean quality of bass the comes out of the M60s on music.

And on HT, well!!!! Last night was my first viewing of Finding Nemo with my daughter, and even with both the receiver and the STF-2 at moderate volume the movie managed to knock a picture off the living room wall. I was not prepared for that. Happy to report the STF-2 showed no problems following the infamous tapping-on-the-aquarium scene, which has apparently exposed defects on some recent CompUSA purchases.

Birdman

I thought I was the only one on the planet who listens to Jimmie Dale Gilmore .