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Listening for BASS nuances in 2.1


ClaudeJ1

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Having designed and built my own Quarter Pie bass horn, as a Klipsch MWMs derivative, I thought I would share my top 3 tests for bass definition after re-tuning my system.

1) From the best selling jazz recording of all time "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis, cut #5, "Sketches of Spain": The very beginning has notes from a plucked acoustic bass. You SHOULD clearly hear that the third note is done as a 2-3 string CHORD and not a single string like the first note. This repeats on the 5th note from the bass also. The clearer you hear each string in the chord being plucked, the better. If you then listen to the alternate take of this song on the bonus track #6, the chord is gone and he's using a single note in the same spots with stronger pluck.

2) On the Eagles CD "Hell Freezes Over" on "Hotel California" intro before the vocals and after the guitar: When the bass drum kicks in with 2 beats each time with the congas, the second beat has a distinct pitch shift for each set of two beats on the second beat each time. It will be almost undetectable if you have mushy bass, but clear and distinct otherwise.

3) On "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo" by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones: Victor Wooten's bass should growl at you and where having a sub to get you down to 30 Hz. at least get you to feel the notes as well as clearly hear his fingers sliding over the strings in the midrange. If he's not using a 5-string bass, then he must be lowering his E string on a 4-string bass to get that low.

Khorns, LaScalas, Belles, Choruses, and Cornwalls all roll off above 40 Hz., so this shows the advantages of a good 2.1 setup in the lower registers, especially for 2 and 3.

There are other test tunes, but these are in the top 3 for me. Happy listening and I hope to hear YOUR results here.

I like your post a great deal. My son plays the stand-up bass and electric bass at school. I have a much better ear for good bass because of this experience. Acoustic bass is different than electric bass which is influenced heavily by the strings, pickups and amp. There is a tendency to boost the bass that has to be resisted to again not encroach on the mid range.

I love Kind of Blue and the first cut So What. In the beginning the piano and bass play together. If you have it right with an amp whose damping is adequate you can tell the two apart. If not you can't.

Justin Weber turned me onto The Clayton Brothers - Back in the Swing of Things. Still learning how to listen to it.

Bass is tough. The listening position can have a huge impact. The room and treatments can also make or break the bottom end. So much modern music has so much more content down low. No longer do you have to reproduce a low C from an organ to need that last bottom octave.

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Please keep in mind that my application is for music and not home theater. At those lowest ocatves, there is actually not much energy in the recordings,

It's clear you don't listen to pipe organs. If you are getting a clean 16.5 Hz low C out of those Jubs that would be a miracle.

Dave

Actually when ASA had a conference in Syracuse NY afew decades ago there was a tour of a venue (a chapel, I think) that had a pipe organ that had something that was below 20Hz. They made sure the recital included a piece to show that off. That was a powerful experience (but not necessarily an audio experience), I doubt many recordings actually record that stuff that low (I know there are some, but maybe not many).

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Please keep in mind that my application is for music and not home theater. At those lowest ocatves, there is actually not much energy in the recordings,

It's clear you don't listen to pipe organs. If you are getting a clean 16.5 Hz low C out of those Jubs that would be a miracle.

Dave

Precisely my point. Thank you.

There is no getting around the time, money, and effort to "really go down there," so to speak. So, the decision to be satisfied without it has much to do with diminishing returns based on how often one listens to pipe organ bass vs. Acoustic bass or 4 string bass, where the lowest pluck is 41 Hz.

It's like a guy who drives the Autobahn in Germany wants to have a 200 MPH car to take advantage of the "no speed limit" aspect. There are very, very few roads in the world like that, but those who have invested the money are the only ones that can ever experience that rare, specific THRILL.

So I'm just borrowing the analogy for those of us who can enjoy 8 Hz. sub bass the few times when it happens to be there, regardless of which plastic playback format is placed in the Oppo's drawer.

Neither choice is wrong.

Edited by ClaudeJ1
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I don't listen to pipe organ music but i do listen to reggae and some rap on occasion, a sub is a must have for these styles of music.

Mostly i listen to rock music and there is more content than you would think on recordings.

Like was mentioned many times before you won't miss it if you never hear it but once you do its hard to go without.

I listen to 2 channel only in my home.

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