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This looks like a good recipe for a premature hearing loss. One reason I think we tend to play things too loudly (guilty as charged here) is to make up for lack of the sense of envelopment we get in a performance space. Another reason is that much home system can’t do justice to bass fundamentals, so we turn up the volume to try to compensate. I’ve found that with speakers that are full-range or almost full-range, I tend to listen at lower average levels. Really.
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Good bass is so hard to reproduce and of course the very definition of good bass is subjective. To often, extended bass response calls too much attention to itself and ultimately detracts from the music. Add to that the problems of room acoustics, the listening environment, WAF, standing waves, etc. Sometimes anything below 35hz is more trouble than it is worth.
Build youself a pair of transmission line subs and then you'll have that "low" bass without the need for "LOUD" bass.Once you truly hear the bottom end. You'll never want to do without.
GTF
In my opinion, most electronics do not do bass well (lack of linearity by far the most-common flaw), and if the mid bass down in the electronics is not right, a subwoofer or full-range speaker will just further-reveal the deficiency. Furthermore, very few power amps (tube or solid-state) handle tough bass loads well, where most amps handle moderate loads of smaller bass drivers just fine. I think this is why lot of people prefer minimonitors. They're simply a lot more compatible with the electronics mated to them.IMO, if the bass *is* done right in the electronics, and full range speakers in such a system are driven without strain, they should image and sound sweet just like minimonitors.
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Above: In-room response of full range loudspeaker (JMlabs Mezzo-Utopia) showing the power band in-room bass suckouts created by room effects
"I’ve found that with speakers that are full-range or almost full-range, I tend to listen at lower average levels."That makes sense. Large, full-range speakers are more sensitive to input power than small speakers and simply play louder.
Furthermore, this (bass) sensitivity helps to re-create the envelopment and power that we experience at bass frequencies from live performance.
Room effects can mess up a speaker's bass response. Speaker's that measure flat on-axis (in an anechoic chamber) don't measure flat in-room. The suckouts caused by room effects often weaken the power range of bass frequencies (~80Hz - 250Hz). These effects seem to be more severe for less sensitive speakers necessitating really, really high playback levels to compensate for the recessed bass created by bass cancellations.
In the link below, notice the roughness of the in-room bass response (of several types of commercial speakers), notice the deep nulls and the peaks that occur in-room.
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If you want to feel like you are there the DVD audio from a live concert like McCartney's latest tour DVD does a pretty good job. It may not be audiophile but what the heck. Now, when these concerts are recorded in true multichannel, the McCartney concerts were not really multichannel in the strict sense, then live performances will really sound good at home. Don't know if old Beatles' is your thing, but if it is, that DVD is cool. Bill
multichannel can certainly address some of the issues here, but that doesn't change the fact that most 2 channel audio still used limited bass response speaker system.
I totally agree with you. I too listen to my NS-300 and NS-1000x at low levels. Good full tower speakers are equally sensitive at low volumes. For bass, I prefer my subs to do the dirty work.
Instead of upgrading to a pair of full-range speakers, I added an ACI Force subwoofer to my old KEF Reference 103/4, plugged a pair of 65hz passive high-pass filters into the C-J SS amp driving them and got the best of both worlds as a result -- vastly better performance from the main speakers on all parameters (clarity, dynamics, soundstage, mid-bass punch) and deep lows from the 250W amp powering the sub. All perfectly integrated.
Try telling this to the HT fanatic to whom the receivers 80-90Hz digital management is the very best and nothing else comes close.
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