Something to keep in mind on the topic of bass and small drivers is that
sometimes what you are hearing for deep bass tones is really the first
harmonic an octave higher, which is often strong and can sometimes "mask"
as the real thing where it is reproduced strongly but the deep fundamental
tone is actually missing. Our ears can be fooled into thinking that the
real bottom tone is there.
For me, nothing compares to a real subwoofer. For many popular small
speaker systems, what they are calling the subwoofer is really the woofer.
The other great benefit of using a real sub, which I think still pertains
in today's world, is that whatever driver is handling the midrange will
often perform with a lot more clarity if that same driver does not have to
move in and out a inch or so to produce the lower tones, while at the same
time struggling to produce the much shorter wavelengths of midrange tones.
As Tom said, bass tones can be very directional, but our sense of where the
bass tones are coming from can be largely determined by their harmonics,
including those generated by the attack of the note. These harmonics are
often high enough to be directional. They ought to be picked up by the L
and R speakers if reasonably full range. I don't know what happens when it
all passes thru a bass-management stage of a modern A-V amp.
Best,
John Haley
On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Frank Strauss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Tom-In response to what David said about bass drums not having a
> definite pitch, I can tell you from the experience of playing in the drum
> corps of a bagpipe band, that bass drums, as well as tenor and snare drums
> most certainly have pitches, and much time is spent in the very good bands
> with harmonizing the drum corps with the pipe corps. This isn't going to
> help you, because it is hopelessly out of production, but I use an Altec
> Lansing ACS45.1 powered computer speaker system. It has a right and left
> speaker and a sub woofer that sits under the desk. It sounds very nice to
> my ears. I have used it for PP shows and it fills a room nicely, and
> people comment on the sound quality. It makes sitting at the computer much
> more pleasant. It was succeeded by ACS340, which is around, but also out
> of production, I think. I bought a Klipsch G 17 Air, to use with a
> laptop. Amazon has it for $204, and they say it has a list of $549. It is
> quite an awful little unit. The only thing nice about it is that it's
> bluetooth. No bass, no separation, and very volume limited.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Frank B Strauss, DMD
>
|