Bass response with a sub

J

JuSumPilgrim

New member
So I pick up a pair of cyber acoustic tweeters with a sub at staples as a reference and find that I can clearly hear whats going on around 50Hz with tone and everything,,,,in ways that make my mackies look really overpriced. Obviously calling these speakers scooped would be the understatement of the decade but that aside, the low lows are there.

Is there any good reason a $30 consumer sub on the floor would trump $1200 speakers on stands?

Is bass always going to be tighter in mono?
 
Might it be the fact that they're on stands? I don't know if you've ever noticed, but speakers have much more bass when they're on the floor or have wall behind them.
 
JSP,

> Is there any good reason a $30 consumer sub on the floor would trump $1200 speakers on stands? <

Not likely. Mackie 824s in a good room beat a $30 sub and cheap speakers every day of the week. By a huge amount. There's much more to speaker quality than boom and thump. THD and IM distortion are a huge factor, as is the overall flatness of the response. The Mackies excel at both of these.

> Is bass always going to be tighter in mono? <

No. If you have funny things going on as you switch between one and two speakers, I have to assume the real issue is your room and a lack of bass trapping.

--Ethan
 
30 dollar consumer subs with 'tight' bass? Unlikely. I find them having 'hyped' bass, more than tight. I don't have any nearfields to compare them to, I find my floorstanders have more 'realisitic' bass, closer to what a bass guitar/cello/kick drum sound like when my band is jamming. Sounds a bit thin at first compared to the sub/sat, but it sounds much better after a few minutes when you figure that the bass is deeper, lower, tighter, more controlled.

Did you mean a mono sub or mono speakers? The subs are usually built with 4th order or 6th order bandpass enclosures. One-note, boomy bass. But you are right, they are a good reference to check what is going on 40 Hz and below. I get usable response to about 37 Hz, below that only my level meters register a signal. But they are pretty much useless for mixing, just a reference and my 2 cents.
 
Like I said, they are obviously scooped and somewhat hyped. I would never mix on them and only bought them as another reference, in addition to the mackies, tannoys, yorkvilles and optimus 7s that I already have. I just thought it was odd that I heard the deep bass so much more clearly (there is no 1 note hype, its relatively even below 80Hz) than my other monitors.
 
JSP,

> only bought them as another reference <

It amazes me when I see a project studio and there are three or more different pairs of speakers. All you really need is one excellent pair of speakers in a room that's properly treated.

> I just thought it was odd that I heard the deep bass so much more clearly <

It may well be psychoacoustic. Unless you actually measure the response to know for sure, I assume what you're hearing is probably just a different flavor of "hyped."

--Ethan
 
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