All About That Bass

[richidoo]

This is the #1 downloaded song on iTunes this week.   

In the song, "All About That Bass" means, "I am fat, my mommy says it's OK, and you are still required to think I'm sexy." I would caution you NOT to watch the video, but for you masochists here is the link: http://www.vmusic.com.au/charts/itunes-top-40-singles-chart.aspx
The song title is the only value to us, because we actually are 'all about that bass.'

We've all heard that we're born with two natural fears, loud sounds and falling. I think we're instinctively more afraid of loud LOW sounds than high pitched sounds, because they cause release of adrenaline, which causes fear, which we as adults can choose to interpret as scary or exciting. In the controlled society, a little adrenaline is welcome to make us feel alive. Some people overdo it, and our society is basically built around adrenal manipulation, but for most of us a little recreational adrenaline is enough. Low bass triggers an adrenal response to music. The artist puts low bass in the song to manipulate your emotions, that's the purpose of music.

We all know that good bass is very important to musical satisfaction. Bass is where the PRAT lives. People turn up their little bookshelves past distorting in order to feel some bass, while big speakers can play satisfyingly soft late at night because the bass is felt even at low level.

Since the beginning of time, humans have adored the feeling they get listening to low frequency sound. Thunder was worshiped as a god, as is Harley Davidson to this day. Hot rods, air shows, rock concerts, church organs, water falls attract the masses with low freq energy. Men with low projecting voice often receive more respect than they deserve.

Great bass for music reproduction needs high acoustic impedance (driverdiameter:wavelength ratio - or horn loading) adequate low impedance power throughout signal chain, low resistance cables and connections, minimal group delay to midrange, low Q alignment, boost for baffle step correction, boost for room EQ, room reflections controlled.  Clean recordings of bass instruments... using small diaphragm, omnidirectional microphones. Most bassist will balk at using a small mic for their big instrument, until they hear the results.

What else makes good bass?

[BobM]

I bet this will make awesome bass

[DaveC]

I got a pair of these coming in a couple weeks...   

http://www.aespeakers.com/drivers.php?driver_id=74

[richidoo]

I bet this will make awesome bass

That IS awesome bass!   Bass-o-matic

[sleepyguy24]

Very interesting topic here. I confess that I was a really bad bass head in my younger years. I loved the car audio scene where you would have guys with bandpass enclosures in their trunks. As I grew up I eventually went from a dual 10" bandpass enclosure to 2 sealed MTX 10" drivers in a ported enclosure to a single 10" sealed Kicker sub in a 1983 Supra. I found I preferred tighter bass to all that boom.

The Professor puts a lot out there in his initial post. My uncle loves the bass that is achieved with horns. I'd love to try cylinder subwoofers myself. My subs are just your normal square ones.

I'd love for the professor to have a conversation with the artist Pendulum on bass production and the usage of smaller mics in the recording session. I often use recordings from them when I wanted to show off a subwoofer.

This track annoys my wife quite a bit.
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5u5RffpBwo

[richidoo]

Dave, those AE woofers are very nice. The H has a foam surround which makes a little resonance around 800Hz iirc, at least the 12" version does, but crossing over to your omegas won't go near that.

[jimbones]

I got a pair of these coming in a couple weeks...   

http://www.aespeakers.com/drivers.php?driver_id=74

Those are supposed to be excellent drivers. How do you think they would do in an open baffle? I think the Q is too low. I have seen them in cabinets (Vapor audio I think?)

[richidoo]

Nice cut sleepY! Nice harmony, nice feel. I can't hear any of the low bass on my laptop.    

As for mics, I was thinking of acoustic bassists in jazz setting preferring vocal mics because they look sexier, and bassists (think they) are the sexiest player in a jazz band. But even jazzers often mix a DI pickup from the bridge with a mic from the amp when recording. Rockers almost always do the same, since the amp is part of their "instrument at large" but they need the DI pickup for the fundamental clean notes to be prettied up in the mix by amp and effects. Good bass always starts with a clean recording.

It does make me think that the bass that makes music satisfying is a bit lower in freq than the mid and upper bass that is part of the melodies and bass lines down to 50-60Hz. As example, even with my laptop speakers I can hear the low bass lines and low guitar lines, and hear the full melody of the male singers. But I can't get the feeling of almighty wall of rock that I assume these guys are trying to portray.

We have all listened to pop rock on the radio with smaller speakers and enjoyed the production, since pop used to be mixed for car audio. But when I heard Daughtry on my Legacy Focus speakers for the first time, wow that was scary loud, low and awesome. Same goes for playing symphonies, they need the bottomest depths played clear and loud to really fill in the emotional feeling of power the artist wants us to feel. It's not easy to make good bass, so it's not common.

Anyone who has seen U2 in concert remembers the bassist with an octave wide foot keyboard on the floor to stomp out the chord fundamentals an octave below his bass. Wow, that pressurized a whole indoor arena.

Maybe that is the tact high end audio marketers should be taking to rejuvenate interest in the hobby among da yoots, give em what they want, let the public hear audiophile quality bass. Unfortunately, it is the hardest and most expensive aspect of our hobby to do well. Even at trade shows and dealer showrooms really good bass is hard to find.

[BobM]

I see hats and cups and bags too, something to do with gossip Girl, but we could claim it as an audiophile too I suppose.

[sleepyguy24]

Glad you liked that Pendulum track. If I lived closer I'd bring the CD by to listen in your systems with better bass.

You got me thinking about bass and for me it adds depth, satisfaction and some nice oomph to tracks. I know some will  with this one but at times I enjoy music by Duran Duran and on some of their more popular tracks I find I notice the bass more. From parts of Hungry Like The Wolf to even Girls On Film I notice/enjoy the bass.

"Maybe that is the tact high end audio marketers should be taking to rejuvenate interest in the hobby among da yoots, give em what they want, let the public hear audiophile quality bass. Unfortunately, it is the hardest and most expensive aspect of our hobby to do well."

I honestly think the audio marketers need to provide good sound in all areas. For them good bass is just loud and boomy. My brother in law who is younger got these beats by Dre studio headphones and the bass was unbearable to me. Sound especially at live events could be better too. I've been to family shows and concerts in recent years and the sound at live events suck. Triode Pete pointed it out at a Boston Concert. I've noticed it in varying venues. I'd love for them to get bass right and the rest of the spectrum. It is either too loud, vocals get washed out, bass is boomy. I think the only venue where I enjoyed the live sound was the Barclay's Center. I can't wait for any of my favorite bands to play there again.

[DaveC]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting the AES 15" woofers in a nice cabinet and Louis is going to build me a custom speaker for the mids/highs.

I can make the crossover pretty much anywhere I want, which is nice... I am thinking around 400 Hz so the woofers can deliver all the mid-bass impact but it'll still be crossed over low enough to be very transparent. The crossover can also be simple 1st order though the woofer might like a zobel.. we will see.

It's the speaker I've pretty much always wanted and I'm not sure there's anything quite like it on the market so I hope it''ll turn out great.

Next? A MTM version 

jimbones, AES makes woofers just for open baffle applications. The ones I ordered will be going in a simple BR enclosure. The Vapor Nimbus and Avalon Tesseract use the 15H, I am getting the 15H+ which has a stronger motor. Probably overkill but that's the point! 

[richidoo]

Nice Ts, Bob... I'd wear that.

Sleepy, I love Duran Duran. I remember listening to Casey Kasum in spring of 1982, waxing my car in the morning when Duran, Culture Club and Dexies midnight runners (Come on Eileen) all debuted top 40 for the first time in the same week.  I don't know why I remember that, but I remember the moment perfectly. I still have my Rio record on vinyl, great album. I think it was the greatest pure pop record ever made. Awesome vocals, great original innovative compositions, created a new style of theatrical sex dripping glam pop never duplicated, sophisticated harmonies, sophisticated exciting arrangements, rabid female reaction, pioneering videos, etc. Later albums not so much, but Rio is great. I'll put the Pendulum CD on my wish list for when I get my woofers up and running. I got a pair of these to make my bookshelfs into 3ways.

I agree that the high end audio first impression has to be great in every way to justify the high price. I'm saying that even the manufacturers and experienced retailers can't make setup a great bass demo their own showrooms or at trade shows. These places are where the public comes for first impression and to decide "if hifi is worth the money" and it often fails to impress. The upper frequencies aren't too hard to make sound good with decent electronics and minor acoustic treatment. But the bass is harder to make it impressive.  It's not easy.

Reliable and easy good bass must be part of the big headphone craze nowadays.

[richidoo]

The woofer won't need a zobel because it already has flat impedance up to 8-10k. You'll have fun trying the various xo possibilities.

[richidoo]

Jim, I had the AE Dipole12s in OB, Qts .68. There was good bass extension down to 30Hz without EQ, but no detail with the high Q.   HighQ in OB is intended for passive xo where "bass boost" in the form of attenuating the upper freqs is not desirable. The OB standard Eminence Alpha has Qts of 1.26! Forget about detail, it only plays sine waves. But it's cheap and plays loud and low in OB.

[Werd]

I tend to like hearing instruments in the soundstage. For me bass guitars and bass drums HAS to be resolved in the sweet spot or sound stage. I don't give a rats ass about feeling bass. The best way I have found this is by controlling speaker breakup. If drivers react differently at the surrounds or edges than closer to the voice coil that tends to blur bass for degraded resolution. That sucks! 10in tops for bass or preferably 8" woofers or better yet well designed front ported floorstanders that tend to handle bass and midrange well in one driver. Like my Adagios.