A Faster S.S. Head?

[fdeck]

Engineers fall in at least two camps. Those that embrace the status quo and those who push the envelope. Historically the status quo folks resist the new concepts and can call the avante garde, heretics. Then they adopt the new concepts and become dogmatic about those. Funny human nature.
This is one of the weaknesses of the practice of science. It's greatest strength? To keep questioning.

Ad hominem argument.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

But you'd sure hear (and be able to measure) filter artifacts if you drove a 40 Hz filter with impulses of a 20-50 ms instead of 2-5 ms right above, there.

Not necessarily. At low frequencies your brain gets most of it's cues from the harmonics. That fact is what allows remote subwoofers/satellite mains systems to work. But once you get into the directionally locatable frequencies things get really dicey. Google 'Eleanor Powell / tapdance'.

 

[okcrum]

Not necessarily. At low frequencies your brain gets most of it's cues from the harmonics. That fact is what allows remote subwoofers/satellite mains systems to work. But once you get into the directionally locatable frequencies things get really dicey. Google 'Eleanor Powell / tapdance'.

Agreed. The harmonics are what defines the leading edge of the waveform (among other things) to give us that cue.

I also have to agree not everyone would hear the LF filter in all cases. It depends on a lot of factors. The only way I could inadequately and nontechnically describe how it sounds (I've done the "drive the LF filter in and out of band" exercise for units I've designed) is "woofy". As you say, there's no perceived directionality at those freqs. You can still hear filter aliasing, though.

The dance videos have nothing but harmonics, compared to tap dancers I've heard live. That's your point, I presume. I've used this principle to save myself on gigs where I have a limited power budget and/or rig. Up on the mids and down on the low end can help a little rig to punch above its weight. It helps that many EBs have an equal or stronger second harmonic relative to the fundamental.

 

[DavePlaysBass]

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Damping factor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Legendary Audio Classics: Damping Factor

 

[billfitzmaurice]

The dance videos have nothing but harmonics, compared to tap dancers I've heard live. That's your point, I presume. l.

When Eleanor Powell tap danced in 'Born to Dance' (1936) the speakers in every movie theater in North America, if not the world, was instantly rendered obsolete. The approximately 5ms time align difference between the woofer and HF horn was clearly heard as a double-hit of her taps. The fact that most of the energy of the taps was at 500Hz, the crossover was 500Hz and the human ear/brain is most sensitive to time align at 500Hz created a triple-whammy that had the movie sound industry in a tizzy, and at that time movie sound was by a very large margin the largest user of loudspeakers. To this day 500Hz crossovers are studiously avoided unless the cab is scrupulously time-aligned.

 

[chadds]

Ad hominem argument.

Not really my intention. I'm commenting on a Talkbass and greater historical observation. I haven't found disagreement here about this effect just what we call it. I've used this time to simultaneously speak about a trend I've seen here and in the world. Here my good fellows are showing great restraint and are answering with their knowledge why we hear what we hear.
May I thank you all!

 

[okcrum]

When Eleanor Powell tap danced in 'Born to Dance' (1936) the speakers in every movie theater in North America, if not the world, was instantly rendered obsolete.

That, Bill, is an amazing bit of history I never knew about.

Some days, TB is completely the shiznitz. Thanks.

 

[bolophonic]

Not half as amusing as 'fast bass'. But that's to be expected, as the layperson tends to think of speed relative to the mechanical realm rather than electrical, and no one has ever intuitively understood the action of sound waves.

Years ago, I briefly played drums in a band with a bass player who started telling us about how sometimes, when he plays REALLY fast, the notes start coming out of his amp BEFORE he even played them. He was like, "you know what I mean?" and there was silence in the room as the rest of us looked around at each other, trying to think of anything else to talk about...

 

[Rockin Mike]

I would have agreed with you if it was just me hearing this.
I've A/B'ed the two heads at rehearsal, others hear it also (or maybe I've got them convinced it's there).
The wife hears it also when I'm at home and in the quiet of our family room.
My ears have also noticed this phenomenon with some all tube heads.

If you're talking about a delay between the time you pluck the string and the time the amp gets the sound out the speakers, how could those other people know whether it's slow or fast? They don't know when you plucked the string so they don't know whether the amp responded sooner or later.

 

[HUnt49]

If you take the term literally, I would agree. However, it makes much sense to me if you take the OP's post in the spirit of using 'fast' to describe what he hears.... but the more bappy attack is, again, IMO and IME, nicely described as a sort of feeling of quicker response, hence 'fast'.

And I think Kjung has nailed, in poetic terms, what we are hearing.

I submit that the term "bappy" should be permanently lodged in the Talkbass lexicon.

 

[JimmyM]

It's no "oomph" but I like it better than "mwah."

 

[bozha]

So, where are the Markbass LM and the F1 on the scale of quickness/responsiveness?

 

[chadds]

Bappy!

 

[nysbob]

So...

we don't dispute the perception being described by the OP, but can we agree that it's related to EQ rather than "speed" and put that erroneous descriptor onto the scrap heap?

At least for this week?

 

[fdeck]

Not really my intention. I'm commenting on a Talkbass and greater historical observation. I haven't found disagreement here about this effect just what we call it. I've used this time to simultaneously speak about a trend I've seen here and in the world. Here my good fellows are showing great restraint and are answering with their knowledge why we hear what we hear.
May I thank you all!

That's cool. At the same time, what I've noticed is that it's often the engineers and scientists who are derided as heretics when we suggest that we live in a world that's accessible to evidence-based inquiry.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Years ago, I briefly played drums in a band with a bass player who started telling us about how sometimes, when he plays REALLY fast, the notes start coming out of his amp BEFORE he even played them. He was like, "you know what I mean?" and there was silence in the room as the rest of us looked around at each other, trying to think of anything else to talk about...

Must have been some pretty good stuff he was on.

If you're talking about a delay between the time you pluck the string and the time the amp gets the sound out the speakers, how could those other people know whether it's slow or fast? They don't know when you plucked the string so they don't know whether the amp responded sooner or later.

+1. They can, however, hear the system response.

 

[spufman]

Different note envelopes feel and sound different and are very much a product of the components and circuit design. That's a big part of an amp's character.

 

[kevinmoore73]

I've tried to compute the speed of my LMII but I lack the mathematical skills to do it accurately. You've got the rotational speed of the Earth about its axis, the speed of the Earth's orbit around the sun, the speed of the Sun through the galaxy, and then the speed of the galaxy through the universe. It boggles the mind.

 

[nysbob]

I've tried to compute the speed of my LMII but I lack the mathematical skills to do it accurately. You've got the rotational speed of the Earth about its axis, the speed of the Earth's orbit around the sun, the speed of the Sun through the galaxy, and then the speed of the galaxy through the universe. It boggles the mind.

If you could come up with some sort of a speed spec for an amplifier, 85% of the manufacturers would figure out a way to inflate it anyway...

 

[John D Harris]

I've tried to compute the speed of my LMII but I lack the mathematical skills to do it accurately. You've got the rotational speed of the Earth about its axis, the speed of the Earth's orbit around the sun, the speed of the Sun through the galaxy, and then the speed of the galaxy through the universe. It boggles the mind.

As (I think it was Bill F) said, it is extremely close to the speed of light.

The response-time as measured in microseconds between the injection of a square-wave at the input and the output at the output terminals is called the rise-time and it is too small of a period for the ear to hear.