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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Silly Question: What does "tight" Bass mean to you? posted by "Red" on October 13, 2011 at 09:41:09:
The thing with bass is that the speaker should be able to provide all sorts of different kinds of bass. I prize a speaker that delineates the bass in a variety of way depending on the recording. The best speakers will be tight when called for, or I suppose "slow" when it called for.
Decay is crucial for me to believe acoustic instruments like cello and piano are right there in the room. Many speakers present bass "their" way and usually suffocates the sound of the instrument's box. It presents a hacked off sound - the transient followed by the next transient followed byu the next transient - but the instrument's box is still resonating the last note - where did it go? Just disappeared - doesn't in real life. On another recording over lower quality or tight snare drum the speaker has to be nimble. The speaker has to be dynamic in the bass - it has to have powerful midbass hit you in the chest thump - that is obviously what the RE intends with rock - many speakers fail to remotely do justice to this.
A lot of people like small two way standmounts for this reason - they sound "tight" or tighter than their bigger floorstanding model. Tight bass if that's the only kind the speaker offers (usually from small panels and small standmounts) sounds tight because it doesn't have much bass or much dynamic bass. Which is why owners of such speakers usually start hunting for a subwoofer a few months after they realize their music sounds tinny and thin. But then you have the often one note subwoofer kind of bass which annoys people for music (great for home theater where we have no real "real life" cues).
I think what you said here "Me, I like midbass with punch and low bass with weight and impact. Bass needs to have and should have impact. I dislike leanness and thinness in my sound. For me, bass should also extend, and tightness should not be at the expense of extension." Is mostly what I believe.
The speaker should have punch and thwack in the midbass (drum kits) and impact but it should also have deeper "ambient" weight when called for. The trick then is to get it to work in the room and space requirements you have. For most the truly deep deep bass is not really doable (apartment living, smaller rooms, positioning requirements, the cost etc.) Bass also usually causes the most problems - if you take bass away then gee box resonances also go away - what a shock. So it may have a very clean crisp sound and the measured performance is supurb but they almost always sound completely gutless. Not much bass or bass dynamics = gutless irritating loudspeaker that makes Jack a boprderline lunatic.
Of course your listening preference also factors in - if you don't listen to music with midbass thwack (rock) and instead listen to slower steady note instruments (classical) then that thwack factor is not so important.
Still I prefer a speaker that does both the slower steady note acoustic instruments will and the "enhanced" drum through amp thwack in rock equally well. I want my cake and I want to be able to eat it. Not just one without the latter.
And the sound has to integrate exceptionally well from bass to midbass to midrange to treble. It has to sound as close to a single driver as possible - no really irritating hand off from drivers (virtually all big speakers are terrible at this even when I sit way back). Usher BE 10, the new expensive Sony speakers are some exceptions but I didn't get a chance to play my own music so I would want to make sure.
And the speaker needs to not take up the whole room. The Teresonic Ingenium speaker is a pretty nice balance of single driver with some actual bass and about as large as I would personally go.
The Gallo 3.5 on the less expensive end sounded good to me in show condition - heart pounding attack and very nimble. But I didn't throw enough recordings at it and it doesn't quite integrate - but was very close and given the price it does a lot right - I would love to try a set one day in my own place. Interesting design.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Silly Question: What does "tight" Bass mean to you? - RGA 00:33:08 10/14/11 (1)
- RE: Gallo Ref 3.5 Experience - House13 10:12:14 05/24/20 (0)
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