formica Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 What's that rule of thumb again?... For a 2 channel music system, 50Hz is sufficient? Or was that 40Hz? It seems to be popular opinion that for music, a Khorn with a Fc of 40Hz doesn't need a sub while the LaScala with a Fc of 60Hz may need one? Well, I was testing a disk in which I found the mix "lacklustre" in spectrum lab so... I decided to throw a couple of favourites albums in to see how they test in bass content. These are all regular 2-channel music recordings on CD... and not DVDA or SACD. The first one is Front242's song "Melt" from the live album called ReBoot98 .... it has great solid low level intensity. Although the bulk is centred at 40 to 50Hz... it actually extends below 20Hz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 This second one is Massive Attack's popular "Tear Drop" from the Mezzanine album... it actually extends down to about 15Hz with good content in the entire 20Hz range! For those who don't know this song, it's a great recording (actually the whole album is) but it's not a "bass heavy" song. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Another one from the same Massive Attack album... "Man Next Door". It has similar extension to TearDrop... but audibly a much heavier beat due to the mid 20Hz content. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 This one is BreakbeatEra's title song from the "UltraObscene" album. It's a great album which falls in the Drum&Bass style, but has strong trip-hop and jazz influences. Good dynamic recording, although you can pickup some of the mix's glitches usually blended out during mastering. I used this album when I auditioned LaScalas (2 channel hifi) and it just wasn't right. Maybe this is why... with a strong beat centred at 40Hz... and extension to 8Hz, A LOT of info was missing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Another Breakbeat Era song... "Animal Machine" which has strong content down to below 10Hz. It really does work out a subwoofer.... All these recording were mastered with CD in mind, so they obviously weren't limited to the RIAA vinyl curve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Not sure what type of music that is or what musical instruments the bands are using. But I'm very curious as to what instruments are making those supposed low notes. Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Ok, How about Meat Beat Manifesto's "YURI" from their "RUOK" album? This is techno-industrial with excellent recording quality throughout the whole frequency range and beyond. I would refer to this as a bass intense recording though. Bass extends evenly to below 10Hz... a lot of info between 20Hz and 50Hz. It'll make most speakers (and a lot of subs) sweat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 All these recording were mastered with CD in mind, so they obviously weren't limited to the RIAA vinyl curve. And that's where the problem lies...it seems the only people that claim low frequency reproduction isn't needed are those running turntables as their main source for playback. And since turntables are incapable of being very accurate below 60Hz there simply is no need for a speaker to dig that low. To compensate, you will also notice that a different EQ curve is used for LP mastering than is used for CD mastering (ignoring the whole RIAA thing). Btw, what program are you using to produce these plots? I would love to add a few more to the list that I know are a bit more extreme below 30Hz [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 OK, I can hear some people whining... "but we don't know any of those groups / songs" or "there was music recorded after vinyl disappeared?" [] Well, I pulled out an oldie... recorded for vinyl. I have an old copy of Dark Side of the Moon, with the original mix. It's not the "remastered" version or even less the SACD one. Just the plain DSTM This is "Speak to Me" at the start of the album... and it has some pretty intense content at 32Hz which extends to about 22Hz. This is well below the LaScala and even the Khorn's capabilities. I think I'll keep my subs... [8-|] ROb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael hurd Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 I have a pretty limited shareware spectrum analyzer, but here is a .jpg capture of TLC's Red Light Special, the top trace is the peak amplitude, and the bottom is the average. I could send that to formica, if he can do a better graph. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Btw, what program are you using to produce these plots? I would love to add a few more to the list that I know are a bit more extreme below 30Hz [] It's SpecLab (or Spectrum Lab) freeware. I'll post the link tonight... as the site i think it is, seems down right now. I'm using the same setings as for the guys at HTF do for their DVD scans. ROb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 "Ok, How about Meat Beat Manifesto's "YURI" from their "RUOK" album? This is techno-industrial with excellent recording quality throughout the whole frequency range and beyond. I would refer to this as a bass intense recording though." I have a few MBM CD's. Don't have RUOK however. "Actual Sounds + Voices" is one I really like, plenty of low frequency for subs. What's really strange, is I can play that CD using my 2A3 amp without the subwoofers and it doesn't seem like it's rolled-off on the lower frequencies. I'm rather certain it is, but it sure doesn't sound like it. Scrounge up some Lustmord, 3/4th's of the recordings seems like it's below 40 Hz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazytubepower Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 well the average person hears 20 to 20 give or take...So I say 19hz, so you can capture all of the musical infomation on any given track Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Not sure what type of music that is or what musical instruments the bands are using. But I'm very curious as to what instruments are making those supposed low notes. Craig Is anyone going to answer this??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 You never heard of a synthesizer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Yea but that is not what I asked. I'm curious as to what instruments are making this super low notes with these recordings. Maybe they are made with a synthesizer, maybe not. I dont know the groups being discussed so I asked! Why the smart a$$ response?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Not sure what type of music that is or what musical instruments the bands are using. But I'm very curious as to what instruments are making those supposed low notes. Alot of those low notes are actually harmonics of the "instruments" used. There is a mix of synthesizer, bass drum, and a good dose of fuzz bass... as well as samples of all those. As for Pink Floyd's heart beat... it was done using a simple bass drum if I'm not mistaken... probably passed through a highpass filter for it to fit on vinyl. Pretty impressive a 30yr old recording... Here is a .jpg capture of TLC's Red Light Special... I could send that to formica, if he can do a better graph. Email me the file, I'll see what I can do... afterall I don't have to listen to it while I graph it... [] BTW, I'm not sure how the "compressed" version will do, as I'm guessing that the algorithm must drop a lot of the low end data to get a 1/10 file size. It's SpecLab (or Spectrum Lab) freeware... I'm using the same settings as the guys at HTF do for their DVD scans. Here you go: http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html And as mentionned, these are the non-default settings I use in Speclab: -48kHz or 44.1kHz sample rate -waterwall scroll interval 120ms -range -70-0dB -fft input size 16384 -decimate input by 8 -freq. range 0Hz-120Hz -coloration "blue" for -70db and "magenta" for 0db. You guy can feel free to add some others to the list. I too have other interesting music that I may add later... ROb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 "why the smart a$$ response?" I just asked you ever heard of a synthesizer, I wasn't trying to be a smart-***.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 And that's where the problem lies...it seems the only people that claim low frequency reproduction isn't needed are those running turntables as their main source for playback. And since turntables are incapable of being very accurate below 60Hz there simply is no need for a speaker to dig that low.Huh? That sounds rather apocryphal, my dear Dr. -- it seems to me I get plenty of clear 32.7 Hz from my LP player, not to mention undertones from bass drums.Interesting, I hadn't heard of different mastering curves for CDs and LPs outside of RIAA equalization. Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 This is an older list but it has some CDs with deep bass on them too. http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/Sub-woofer-Set-Up/How-Low.html Rob, Do you have Blue Man Group's 'Audio' on CD or DVD-A? Would be interesting to know how deep some of that goes. Thanks, Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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