who here likes DEEP BASS?

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ever since i was first exposed to a pipe organ with 32' pipes, i have been a big fan of the room-pressurizing, air-pulsing, pants-flapping throbbing deep bass produced by such organs, as well as from contrabass wind and brass instruments, some synthesizers [like the ARP] and also bass percussion instruments such as thunderdrums and tam tams and large gongs. i like the skin-tingling chest-vibrating sensations induced by strong bass below 40 cycles per second- for a reference, the low E on a bass guitar is 41.3 cycles per second. i like deep bass so much that i produced a CD with nothing on it but these deep bass notes, in a semi-musical arrangement. this is NOT to be confused with the thumpy "BOOMBEDY-BOMP" bass so many car subwoofers are tuned-for, which is just a big hump in the 40-80 cycle per second range and not true deep bass.

Oh, yes, me! When I saw the subject line, I assumed it meant car subwoofers, which I hate, although somewhat unfairly because I mostly only hear my neighbor's when she pulls up and her entire car is rattling at an awfully disturbing frequency and my windows start rattling and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. Especially when she doesn't just pull up and turn it off but pulls up an dleaves it on while she has a lengthy conversation with someone else. Argh!

But I LOVE Taiko (sp?) drumming and really big gongs that don't get those terribly high frequencies that hurt me and I love big theater organs and I play African drums and love being in drum circle. One of my peak experiences was playing my drum in the middle of a drum circle of at least 100 hand drummers. It was like being inside a beating heart.

I like deep bass as well, but the drawback is that real deep bass needs BIG amps and speakers.

a way around this problem is to get a good car bass system, which can be tuned for musical effect rather than the standard rap/hiphop "BOOMBEDYBOMP" midbass noise. i tuned my subwoofer to have a total system resonance down below 20 cycles per second, so that i could hear and feel the organ stop wurlitzer's resultant 32'/64' stops to full effect, that would be useable bass down to 8 cycles per second which at full volume is sufficient to shake your guts and bowels- what an incredible all-over sonic massage! it is much easier to get this level and depth of bass in a car due to the relatively tiny interior volume to fill with bass. i could get 8 cycles per second with a long-throw 10" rugged woofer in a 3 cubic foot tuned enclosure in the trunk, driven by just 150 monophonic watts, at a total cost far less than a home system of similar bass levels.

I dig heavy sound, encompassing the full range of what's possible for us to interpret with our shoddy flesh instruments. Anything carrying a lot of energy and realism amps me up... as such I've folded an 8 foot horn into the back of my car and feed it a healthy amount of clean power, parametrically equalized with the aid of a real time analyzer for as level as is reasonable a response curve. Expensive? Nah.... I work for MTX/Xtant (Mitek) and this sort of fun is my job anyway.

I do love subwoofers but loathe that so few people seem capable of tuning an audio system for vivid, realistic and clean audio. For right or wrong, it seems most folks are more than content to simply hear loud pounding sounds with some sort of rhythm regardless of how little it ends up sounding like the source music coming off their disc or ipod. I hate that these poorly tuned, overdriven, distorted and muddy rattleturds are so prevalent and expose otherwise neutral people to the very worst in subwoofers and bass, preventing those people from ever seeking to enjoy a clean and well tuned, full range audio system. No wonder Bose is seen as the pinnacle of sound for so many, it's one of the only brands which offers the user a subwoofer it's nearly impossible to incorrectly adjust or operate, so even though their systems generally sound just mediocre, the absence of user error makes them shine line diamonds to the uninitiated listener.

I suppose I shouldn't care, except that my job is the manufacture and sale of audio systems and the more end users screw up their installs and tuning, the worse our sales prospects (and any other company's as well) look.

I'm also a fan of real (as in not totally synthesized like hip-hop) bass, but I don't currently own a system that can get much below 40Hz. My little JBL 4301s do incredibly well for their size, with a little help on the low end from my equalizer and by being in corners, but someday when I have some money to play with I'd like to compliment them with a good quality sub.

My car on the other hand, still as it's almost 20-year-old stock system, and it's going to stay that way (barring any repairs). The money I spend on audio goes to continually improving my home system.

Check out this system constructed by a real pipe organ connoisseur. If I recall, I believe this particular system actually gets those 30" woofers close to 12Hz!

http://www.dougronald.com/sound_images.htm

have a 5-string bass, w/ low B...

The reason why EV stopped making those 30" drivers was due to the fact that the large size of the cone was causing the cone breakup due to the fact that they couldn't find a material that was both stiff and light enough to make a cone of that size with no breakup.

That guy would probably have been better off getting a pair of ServoDrive ContraBass speakers, which have no problem reproducing 10Hz signal, and if I remember correctly, will go down to 5Hz. The drawback with them though is that the cone drive mechanisms for them, (ServoDrive makes Rotary speakers) need to be replaced due to mechanical wear.

I don't like it when a car is passing by making things shake & pulse but I do like some base depending on the song. I listen to Isaac Hayes & his voice is very deep base

I enjoy listening to basso profundos. For a while when I was in choir, I could sing in the basso profundo range - hitting the F#1 at my deepest.

wow. that is deep. i can only "sing" that low when i have laryngitis. ever hear of j.d. sumner? he sang back-up bass with elvis, with his group j.d. sumner and the stamps. he could sing down to 32 cycles per second low C. he is in the guinness book of world records for singing that low in a popular song [elvis presley's "way down."] his voice rattled windows.

at somewhat greater reliability, there are the BAG END subwoofers, that use ELF sub-resonance technology to make their twin-18" subwoofer system go down to 8 cycles per second, as long as they are fed with at least 200 watts per channel.
the problem however, is that down along with the rare musical denizens of the deep, are lots of noisy subsonic rumbles due to air currents and distant traffic that the microphones pick-up and exaggerate.

the fella could have saved lots of room and some duckies as well, if he had just gotten himself 4 carver amazing subwoofers [and an upgraded dedicated electrical supply to power them]- i used to own just ONE of those little monsters [they weight over 50 pounds per 11 inch square cube], and it made the whole house lights dim and it shook the whole house.

speaking of "no highs-just lies, no lows-must be bose"- why do so many bose owners get downright medieval when anybody dares to express a a non-salutory opinion of their bose equipment? enquiring minds want to know.

When I was chanting while in labor, at one point I felt like the walls were moving and my midwife told me I had hit the resonant frequency of the room. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it was an amazing sensation.

there are multiple resonant frequencies in any given room. but the ones that would make it seem like "the walls were moving" would have to be in the bass range, and unless you are a contralto on steroids that would be hard to do. IOW your midwife likely pulled that one out of her wazoo. however, i have heard exceptionally deep-voiced female announcers [one on NPR and one on CBC radio] who could make some male announcers sound like ex-castrati choir members.
in army basic training at the end of a long forced march, when i was out of breath and panting, my addled and oxygen-deprived brain made the walls of the barracks seem to get wavy and undulating, hence the walls were moving for me. a very unpleasant sensation.