How important is sub bass below 20 Hz??

[ClaudeJ1]

Last year, I sold my twin Danley DTS-10 subs, which in my room at the time, went down to 8 hz. they also vibrated stuff 3 rooms down the hall, which was stupid.

 

I now have 3 Danley TH-50's which have a cutoff 10 Hz. higher at 18 Hz. in my new room.

 

They seem to work better for 2.1 music and still have great impact for Blue Rays in 6.1.

 

I have a new tapped horn design that should get me back down to single digits and an extra Crown K2 (I hate fans).

 

Based on measurements and the STAR ratings here, am I missing too much?????

 

Thoughts from other bassheads please!

[Ricci]

Depends...

How loud do you listen?

How big is your room?

How is your room construction? Floor suspended wood, or basement concrete? Walls?

 

Huge room or open space with concrete floors and sturdy walls and you listen very loudly? I'd recommend trying to get HUGE headroom to the 15-20Hz range and not worry about below that too much. Use transducers in the seating if you want the shake from the very lowest freq's in a space like that.

 

Suspended floor, smaller room and / or lower overall listening levels and in my opinion it becomes more worthwhile to go after the stuff below 15Hz.

[ClaudeJ1]

Depends...

How loud do you listen?

How big is your room?

How is your room construction? Floor suspended wood, or basement concrete? Walls?

 

Huge room or open space with concrete floors and sturdy walls and you listen very loudly? I'd recommend trying to get HUGE headroom to the 15-20Hz range and not worry about below that too much. Use transducers in the seating if you want the shake from the very lowest freq's in a space like that.

 

Suspended floor, smaller room and / or lower overall listening levels and in my opinion it becomes more worthwhile to go after the stuff below 15Hz.

Two basement concrete walls, and two drywalled 2x4, one open stairway. Open wood floor joists 7.5 ft tall. Room dimensions are 21x27 but I'm only using about 14 foot main speaker spacing. Danley SH-50 mains. One in corner one not. Both on top of TH-50 (like Tom Danley's home setup, I asked him). SPL TD-1 (Danley's orig. patents) surrounds. One TH-50 in rear to balance. Audyssey XT/32 room correction. I measure 3W peaks on mains at 85-90 db listening. The only time I come near clipping on the K2 is when I put on Edge of Tomorrow as my "torture test." I don't use any Highpass filtering other than the 8 Hz. in the Crown K2. Very simple...one receiver, one sub amp. for 6.1 and 2.1. Thanks for the checklist of factors, Mr. Ricci.

 

My own conclusion is that that even though response below 18 hz. falls off more quickly the EMOTIONAL and gut shaking impact is still there on the best Blue Rays while retaining musicality to 2.1 since I use the same setup for 2 ch listening also. So I do consider bass below 20 hz. to have diminishing returns. I was seeking other comparative opinions.

[Contrasseur]

Same question here!

 

I have a concrete floor.

 

As you all know, there are tremendous efficiency gains and cost savings to be had for every octave of low end you sacrifice. Tactile transducers aside, how low can you really experience?

[Ricci]

Same question here!

 

I have a concrete floor.

 

As you all know, there are tremendous efficiency gains and cost savings to be had for every octave of low end you sacrifice. Tactile transducers aside, how low can you really experience?

 

Depends...With enough level you can experience any frequency I'd imagine. For example the big cab I just built would produce some obvious sound/vibration in the low teens outdoors. Mostly a clear air modulation effect. The biggest, deepest extending systems I've ever heard can do this down to around 10Hz in a good room. Below that I've never experienced anything other than subtle pressure feelings even from systems with huge output, unless there is a suspended floor or riser to transfer vibration. In those cases the whole ball game changes.

[EndersShadow]

An interesting read.  I was ALMOST one of the participants of this but wasnt able to make that meet.  I wont say I'm an expert at any of the subject matter but it was interesting to see what body parts respond to what frequencies....

 

http://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/bass-the-physical-sensation-of-sound

[Infrasonic]

Depends on the content, really.

 

Everybody should get at least 30hz. That or 20hz.

 

How "important" any frequency cutoff is up to you. Can you enjoy music/movies with out a subwoofer? Sure.

 

I'd say shoot for solid 15hz extension. That gives you about everything.

 

Going lower gets tricky and I don't mean just having a subwoofer that can reproduce said frequencies but that is a whole other bass game of discussion.

[SME]

Keep in mind that SPL is critical to how much you experience from very low end content.  Merely having "extension" to 20 Hz is pointless if you can't do it cleanly with high enough SPL to notice it.  I think threshold for 20 Hz is 80 Hz or even a bit lower, but in a big bass heavy scene in a movie, you'll need output well into the100s before you'll notice it much.  And that's nowhere near enough to keep up with a lot of movies played at reference level.

 

With that said, I agree that 15 Hz is a good sweet spot.  Hearing sensitivity drops off quite a bit below 40 Hz, and I think it drops off even a bit faster starting around 18 Hz or so.  Once you get down to 10-12 Hz, there's not much hearing left, and it's mostly down to feeling I think.  Though to be honest, I don't really know.  I will soon have decent capability down to if not below 5 Hz. However, I have a suspended floor, and I might be able to feel a lot of bass down there that people on concrete floors or outdoors might miss.  I also may not be able to judge whether I'm actually hearing that bass at all or if it's all tactile.  We'll see.

[carp]

Depends...

How loud do you listen?

How big is your room?

How is your room construction? Floor suspended wood, or basement concrete? Walls?

 

Huge room or open space with concrete floors and sturdy walls and you listen very loudly? I'd recommend trying to get HUGE headroom to the 15-20Hz range and not worry about below that too much. Use transducers in the seating if you want the shake from the very lowest freq's in a space like that.

 

Suspended floor, smaller room and / or lower overall listening levels and in my opinion it becomes more worthwhile to go after the stuff below 15Hz.

 

Everything Ricci says here sums up my experience perfectly - he nailed all the variables.  The above response should be on a sticky somewhere at AVS.  

[Ricci]

Everything Ricci says here sums up my experience perfectly - he nailed all the variables.  The above response should be on a sticky somewhere at AVS.  

 

Every once in a while I make a bit of sense.

[maxmercy]

Having recently gone from a room that could get me 5-7Hz extension to one that is now -3dB at 25Hz (raw response), I can tell you that there is a significant difference.

 

I have gone from:

 

1. 40Hz at -20dBRef

2. 30Hz at -15dBRef

3. 16Hz at -10dBRef

4. 7Hz at -7dBRef or 15Hz at -0dBRef

 

To the current system (same as #4), in a bigger room that should be good to 15Hz after EQ to -10dBRef.  Here are my impressions.

 

Like Ricci said, 30Hz is a must.  It's what the best commercial cinemas aim for.

 

20Hz extension will get you significant gains over 30Hz extension (if at the same SPL).

 

15Hz extension gets you significant shudder effects.  Films like Scott Pilgrim gain significant impact.  Like Ricci said, you get 95+% of the experience.

 

The jump from 15Hz to 7Hz for me was not as significant as the jump from 30Hz to 15Hz.  Noticeable, But I was on a concrete slab with no transducers.

 

 

It wasn't until I lost the 7Hz extension (concrete slab and all) that I missed it.  It does matter when it is encoded on the disc (even at lower listening levels), IMO.

 

I want/need some transducers now.

 

JSS

[EndersShadow]

I have Buttkicker transducers and while they are good... They don't do well with the low frequency stuff.

 

It starts to ping enough to be annoying.

 

I'm somewhat waiting for a minidsp to use on it so I can play around with a subsinic filter around 7 - 10 HS and also apply a high pass around 40hz so I can JUST work on adding more to what my sub can't do.

 

I heard about it before I bought it but I didn't have Crowson money so I bought it anyway. I've NOT heard the same of the Crowskn transducers.

[SME]

Having recently gone from a room that could get me 5-7Hz extension to one that is now -3dB at 25Hz (raw response), I can tell you that there is a significant difference.

 

I have gone from:

 

1. 40Hz at -20dBRef

2. 30Hz at -15dBRef

3. 16Hz at -10dBRef

4. 7Hz at -7dBRef or 15Hz at -0dBRef

 

To the current system (same as #4), in a bigger room that should be good to 15Hz after EQ to -10dBRef.  Here are my impressions.

 

Like Ricci said, 30Hz is a must.  It's what the best commercial cinemas aim for.

 

20Hz extension will get you significant gains over 30Hz extension (if at the same SPL).

 

15Hz extension gets you significant shudder effects.  Films like Scott Pilgrim gain significant impact.  Like Ricci said, you get 95+% of the experience.

 

The jump from 15Hz to 7Hz for me was not as significant as the jump from 30Hz to 15Hz.  Noticeable, But I was on a concrete slab with no transducers.

 

 

It wasn't until I lost the 7Hz extension (concrete slab and all) that I missed it.  It does matter when it is encoded on the disc (even at lower listening levels), IMO.

 

I want/need some transducers now.

 

JSS

 

Wow, that's a big bummer on the room downgrade.  What kind of space is the new room?  Were you running 4 x 15"?

[maxmercy]

Was running 8x15", at the old place, initially 4 on front wall 1/4 points with a cluster of 4 nearfields (best for ULF), then switched to all 8 on front wall (much better transients and midbass punch).

 

Now at the new place, the room size is bigger, on a 2nd floor, and with an open stairwell down.  Impulse response is much better with a better overall bass response given my limited sub placement options (corner screen and subs in an arc straddling the corner with the center of the arc at the MLP), and some of the rolloff can be mitigated with EQ, but the amount of room gain I got at the old place (concrete floor and 3 concrete 1/2 walls) was pretty good.

 

Once I get the new HT hooked up properly I'll  post up pics.

 

JSS

[SME]

Was running 8x15", at the old place, initially 4 on front wall 1/4 points with a cluster of 4 nearfields (best for ULF), then switched to all 8 on front wall (much better transients and midbass punch).

 

Now at the new place, the room size is bigger, on a 2nd floor, and with an open stairwell down.  Impulse response is much better with a better overall bass response given my limited sub placement options (corner screen and subs in an arc straddling the corner with the center of the arc at the MLP), and some of the rolloff can be mitigated with EQ, but the amount of room gain I got at the old place (concrete floor and 3 concrete 1/2 walls) was pretty good.

 

Once I get the new HT hooked up properly I'll  post up pics.

 

JSS

 

Cool.  I look forward to seeing it.  It's still remarkable how much ULF you lost.  Hypothetically speaking, would another 8 X 15"s help much?  Or is that low stuff pretty much unobtainable for you?

[Kyle]

Cool.  I look forward to seeing it.  It's still remarkable how much ULF you lost.  Hypothetically speaking, would another 8 X 15"s help much?  Or is that low stuff pretty much unobtainable for you?

 

When in doubt, double the subwoofers and you should be good to go

[maxmercy]

The eventual plan is floor-to-ceiling line arrays and a total of 16 15" subs.  Should be enough for whatever at 0dBRef.  That could be a while away, though.

 

JSS

[SME]

The eventual plan is floor-to-ceiling line arrays and a total of 16 15" subs.  Should be enough for whatever at 0dBRef.  That could be a while away, though.

 

Are you thinking of trying Crowsons first to see if they fill the gap?  I'm curious as you say you missed < 10 Hz extension from before even though you were on a concrete slab

[maxmercy]

Crowson's will likely be put in before the arrays ever get done.  Already have the amps for them.  Way too much to do before Crowson's are part of the deal, though.

 

JSS