Indeed when I had my Tobias it could hit these subsonic booms.Of course you can do without a 5 or 6 string basses, octaves see to that but hitting booming notes on the B string are fantastic for rattling an irritating neighbor's dishes or waking up the audience.
The Stingray 5-er was more midrange focused, but could also piss off neighbors.
A weird thing I picked up from a certain bassist known to favor Carl Thompson basses before he got famous, is to use lighter gauge strings and shoot for getting the overtones of the string, not the fundamental.
On an open low B this can sound like a lot of rattle if you aren't careful!
However lighter gauge also means less tension, easier to play.
