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cabinet frequency response

#141
B-string said:
Many recorded bass tracks are a blend. But beyond that most of my time is now with no FOH or my own FOH. What is heard "on stage" is not as important to me personally as how it translates out in front of the stage. It was a hard pill to swallow that the people paying the bills matter more than my own satisfaction on stage. A view I fully expect to be in the minority on ;).
University Sound was the last to offer that 60 watt 30" BTW. EV gave up when quality high power became available.
Click to expand...

I don't see the two as mutually exclusive, although there are certainly room and other issues involved. Also, there are issues of trying to tell the difference, when you can't really hear the way it sounds in the room easily, and when people come in the room changes, too.

A good sound onstage seems like a pretty good place to start, though.

Actually, EV and University threw in together, so your reference to the 30" woofer is sort of a distinction without a difference.

Sometimes I forget that I'm not the only old-timer. Haha. I might be wrong about the thing still being in production, too. I'm trying to check on the EV site, which does indicate University Sound products, but it's not cooperating.

What's amazing to me is that there are so many people who use this site who are SO knowledgeable. I think there are a lot of people here who know more about loudspeakers than in the actual audiophile/speaker nerd community.

Thanks,
Andy



Thanks,
Andy
 
#142
Mike Arnopol said:
Man--I heard Billy Cox with Hendrix and he was using those 30"ers! Not a lot of harmonic content above 300hz!

Andy---when I was 18 I built an IM Fried setup with transmission lines with the B139's and LS35A type satellites. Best bass ever!

I have to say that on electric bass--in the studio-- I always go for a mix of direct and mic'd speakers. I've gotten some of my favorite sounds with a combination of direct and an old Ampeg B15. You can get your low end extension and high end definition from the direct and the harmonic richness from the B15. On one session we put and SVT bottom cranked in another studio and mic'd---that was the sound appropriate for the session.

I tend to think that we're not just into sound reproduction but sound production to a degree. (a much smaller degree than guitarists which is why the cheap garbage speakers sound so good). Which is why certain tube amps that are anything but neutral work so well for some. I prefer a more hifi neutral type sound and use eq to suit my needs but there are many that use a 215 with K140's that get a killin' sound---for their needs.
Click to expand...

yeah- what you said!

A
 
#143
AlexanderB said:
No, this is wrong. The Sensurround system was invented and developed by Cerwin Vega and Universal Studios for that movie and was a huge technological breakthrough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround

The 18" transducer 189E was far ahead of anything Electro Voice or JBL had in their portfolio at the time. By that I mean that newer high performance woofers developed in that direction; higher Xmax, lower Qes and Qts, more robust suspension etc.
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Today, soundproofing bass is still an expensive ordeal. In a multiplex You'll hear some bleadthrough from the theater next door, but not as much as you would be if Sensurround was being used. Today it's about Maxxbass, and pseudo psycho methods where the bass isn't really there. The pseudo bass processing is on the soundtrack. Local processing isn't needed.

If your woofers crap out on the lows, you can try Maxxbass. Even if your woofers do lows fine, you can still do Maxxbass in situations where you need to isolate bass from adjoining venues.

Either way, I hope someday bass gear consumers demand charts and measurements from manufacturers that show what the cabinets are capable of providing. Good cabs cost enough, why not ask what it can actually do.

I really don't get the attitude that you have to listen to every cab to know what it sounds like. There's really not a lot of information in "bass" frequencies. It's like all sine waves, they are there or not. If it's not, there may be no way to actually add it if the cab just can't do it. If I want a cab that can produce bass, I expect the manufacturer to show me it can. I can compare charts from known reference cabs and my brain knows what the difference is. Like reading music.

The cabinets upper bass, mids, and highs, may add "voicing", but even there, I may not want it added by the cab itself. Too much artsy fartsy in all the subjective descriptions of how a cabinet sounds. I'll provide the Artsy as long as the cab doesn't Fartsy.
 
#145
Limited time still/again...
Whether you call a speaker cabinet a "producer" of sound or a "reproducer" is a pointless philosophical argument. I'd rather have access to cabinets that do not impose limitations on my tone. I am willing to make an exception in the case of biamping; if a cabinet rolls off higher than I would otherwise accept, but brings something to the table above that, then I'll use another cabinet to beef up the low end.

But to say that no one, nowhere, no way, no how should ever strive for deep bass?
That's the same kind of thing you hear out of religions. There's one way and only one way and it's our way. All others are sinners and must be crushed.
If some people are happy with 60Hz and above, that's peachy. But why is anyone who dares to try for anything below 50Hz in league with the devil? That sort of absolutist thinking is bad news. Don't believe it? Go read some history books. Once that mindset takes hold, it grows like a cancer and spreads to other areas of life--topics more important to life in general than how much low end a musician can have.

I think it's interesting that there are people who appear--and perhaps I'm misreading what they're trying to say--to be opposed to a bassist having their own equipment/tone on stage. They seem to be saying that's the PA's job. That, too, should be up to the musician in question.

Grey
 
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#146
acmebass said:
I don't see the two as mutually exclusive, although there are certainly room and other issues involved. Also, there are issues of trying to tell the difference, when you can't really hear the way it sounds in the room easily, and when people come in the room changes, too.

A good sound onstage seems like a pretty good place to start, though.

Actually, EV and University threw in together, so your reference to the 30" woofer is sort of a distinction without a difference.

Sometimes I forget that I'm not the only old-timer. Haha. I might be wrong about the thing still being in production, too. I'm trying to check on the EV site, which does indicate University Sound products, but it's not cooperating.

What's amazing to me is that there are so many people who use this site who are SO knowledgeable. I think there are a lot of people here who know more about loudspeakers than in the actual audiophile/speaker nerd community.

Thanks,
Andy


Thanks,
Andy
Click to expand...

Surprising who hangs around here :).
Old timers, yes you are in good company. I remember as a kid you were a hot ticket if you had a vacuum tube COLOR TV.
Let us know if you get any info on University. I know after EV absorbed them they were still making a few items. EV University even bought patent rights to the mid basket second spider from the defunct Cetec Guass and made them for a short while. IIRC McCalley is still the owner and making them these days.
 
#148
For what it's worth, I remember Sensurround as Cerwin Vega.
There was also, if I recall, a massive dual ad campaign boasting, from the movie's point of view, that they were using Cerwin Vega speakers to rattle your bones--and from Cerwin Vega's POV that they made the speakers used in the movie.

Horns, weren't they? (...pretty high cutoff...just loud as hell...)

This gets back to something I've said in other threads and have seen touched on in this one. If you feel it in your chest, it's not that deep--you're looking at 75Hz, plus or minus a bit. The Earthquake roadshow wasn't all that deep, just chest-vibrating. But given that the hoi polloi don't know the difference, it made a grand impression. I remember a review extolling the low end.
Real, honest-to-goodness low end comes through the soles of your feet, not your chest. Get a frequency generator (aka function generator) and play with it for a while. Incidentally, this experiment will put paid to the argument about the kick drum and bass causing trouble. Why? Because the punch-in-the-chest kick drum sensation is--you guessed it--in the boom-boom car stereo region, i.e. 75Hz-ish. So if you're truly trying to stay out of the way of the drum kit, you're going to have to dip between 50-100Hz.
The real reason there's a problem with drums and bass is that the LF drivers in the PA system are doubling and you're losing your low end for both instruments--not because there's some sort of mystical conflict. Get a beefier PA system and the problem will cure itself. Yes, that costs money, but it works.

Grey
 
#149
GRollins said:
I think it's interesting that there are people who appear--and perhaps I'm misreading what they're trying to say--to be opposed to a bassist having their own equipment/tone on stage. They seem to be saying that's the PA's job. That, too, should be up to the musician in question.

Grey
Click to expand...
The many being oblivious to their own influence on the house sound from the stage is what leads to me and a few others getting your run down.

I love tone as much as the next guy. I've never said abandon all ye stage rigs. Neither has anyone else on this thread to my knowledge.

In the absence of other clues I regard the casual enquirer like our Lowner OP as a newbie with no idea what he's really getting into.

There is often a wall of mud awaiting the audience and/or a big uninformed fight with a soundman when these guys hit a club with a huge rig and an attitude of "my sound on stage is non negotiable".

You wouldn't abandon driver licencing and say "drivers should know what they are doing, go for it". Lucky sound production is not life or death. It's life or death for bands and venues and the very idea of live bands being worth the effort to go to hear.
 
#150
GRollins said:
For what it's worth, I remember Sensurround as Cerwin Vega.
There was also, if I recall, a massive dual ad campaign boasting, from the movie's point of view, that they were using Cerwin Vega speakers to rattle your bones--and from Cerwin Vega's POV that they made the speakers used in the movie.

Horns, weren't they? (...pretty high cutoff...just loud as hell...)

This gets back to something I've said in other threads and have seen touched on in this one. If you feel it in your chest, it's not that deep--you're looking at 75Hz, plus or minus a bit. The Earthquake roadshow wasn't all that deep, just chest-vibrating. But given that the hoi polloi don't know the difference, it made a grand impression. I remember a review extolling the low end.
Real, honest-to-goodness low end comes through the soles of your feet, not your chest. Get a frequency generator (aka function generator) and play with it for a while. Incidentally, this experiment will put paid to the argument about the kick drum and bass causing trouble. Why? Because the punch-in-the-chest kick drum sensation is--you guessed it--in the boom-boom car stereo region, i.e. 75Hz-ish. So if you're truly trying to stay out of the way of the drum kit, you're going to have to dip between 50-100Hz.
The real reason there's a problem with drums and bass is that the LF drivers in the PA system are doubling and you're losing your low end for both instruments--not because there's some sort of mystical conflict. Get a beefier PA system and the problem will cure itself. Yes, that costs money, but it works.

Grey
Click to expand...
Yes and no.

I play some funky jazz at pretty low volume. We mic up the kick drum sometimes and give a little guts to it in the 80 hz region. With that I find my bass sounds far better cut in the lows than boosted to match and it's not from lack of headroom in the sub.
 
#152
GRollins said:
Limited time still/again...
Whether you call a speaker cabinet a "producer" of sound or a "reproducer" is a pointless philosophical argument. I'd rather have access to cabinets that do not impose limitations on my tone. I am willing to make an exception in the case of biamping; if a cabinet rolls off higher than I would otherwise accept, but brings something to the table above that, then I'll use another cabinet to beef up the low end.

But to say that no one, nowhere, no way, no how should ever strive for deep bass?
That's the same kind of thing you hear out of religions. There's one way and only one way and it's our way. All others are sinners and must be crushed.
If some people are happy with 60Hz and above, that's peachy. But why is anyone who dares to try for anything below 50Hz in league with the devil? That sort of absolutist thinking is bad news. Don't believe it? Go read some history books. Once that mindset takes hold, it grows like a cancer and spreads to other areas of life--topics more important to life in general than how much low end a musician can have.

I think it's interesting that there are people who appear--and perhaps I'm misreading what they're trying to say--to be opposed to a bassist having their own equipment/tone on stage. They seem to be saying that's the PA's job. That, too, should be up to the musician in question.

Grey
Click to expand...

Wow! Was that directed at me?
Oy Vay!!!

There is certain gear that is a valid aesthetic choice. An SVT is more of a sound "producer" than a reproducer It imposes a strong character on the sound that is very far from the sound coming directly from the bass. A very valid aesthetic that sounds great but is not my thing. Same with a 215. They impose a strong character. Also valid but not my thing.

I prefer as low as I can practically go and as neutral. I'm an eq maniac and like to control my own sound. If I could get 32hz (an honest 32 hz) I'd probably go for it. But I couldn't afford the road crew to haul 200 lb. cabinets around. I agree with you that bassists--and humanity in general don't know what true low bass sounds like. It wouldn't interfere with the PA because the PA's don't go that low. Bill Fitzmaurice posted an RTA directly from a huge PA with massive subs at a reggae concert with Family Man Barrett on bass (one of my favs). There was no content under 50hz. They can go lower in some contexts but PA guys usually limit the low end.

A point I was trying to make is that most bass speakers ---even ones with we consider having a great low end extension are unloaded below 40hz. From looking at Andy's specs he does tune quite low. I respect him because he gives frequency response along with what that actually means--the -3db and -6db points. I'm sick of some high end manufacturers that claim a "usable response to 35 hz" where I know that they're extremely lucky to have a-10db at that point.

Then bass players boost the bass and play their B strings and say that low bass sucks because it's boomy and loads up the stage--blah---blah. It's not the low bass---it's the fact that the speaker can't reproduce that low bass without being unloaded. That's what gives crappy bass.
 
#153
Mike Arnopol said:
A strong response in the 30 to 40hz range is audible---but to me it's more of a physical sensation. Listen to that beginning of the Saint Saens (sp?) organ work on a stereo that will do 28hz. There's not a lot of overtones in that organ note. It's much more of a physical than audible sensation. Or when I was a kid I was really into a contemporary composer named Harry Partch. All of the instruments were home made. He had a contrabass marimba where the lowest note was around 30hz.. The resonant chamber for it was someting like 10 or 12 feet by 6 feet high--I don't remember. I remember hearing it on a speaker that would reproduce that low. It again wasn't dramatic in an audible sense--more a very cool physical presence.
Click to expand...

Ah my kind of music! I was into HP many decades ago and I think I may still have my "Delusion Of The Fury" LP! :cool: Wonderful instruments - Marimba Eroica, chromelodeons! Such fantastic instruments Harry developed.

The Saint Saëns Organ Symphony No. 3 is one of my favorite classical pieces; I have a Telarc recording of Eugene Ormandy with the Philadelphia Orchestra performing it, WONDERFUL!!! My Maggies and Definitive Technologies subwoofer do it justice. :bassist:

A couple years ago we saw The Cleveland Orchestra perform it at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst conducting, utilizing the freshly restored Norton Organ to superb effect! :cool:
 
#158
Downunderwonder said:
It means that the back pressure of the cab on the cone vanishes below the tuning frequency. This lets the cone fly so the magnet loses contol of the coil, generating distortion.
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I guess that's why I use an Fdeck HPF-Pre when this happens. Again, I know when it sounds good. I just need you experts to tell me how to get it.
 
#160
I think way to many people are looking at this wrong. The bottom line is if you tailor your tone to include super low frequencies then your tone is going to sound "wrong" when they are not there. For example through a PA at a show or someone listening to your music in their car.

Just record song in a decent studio with no low end post eq. Listen to it in your car. Then go back to the recording and ad a post eq to cut out everything gradually from 40hz on down. What you'll notice is with those lows cut you can get the bass a lot louder in the mix without damaging speakers or making your interior rattle and vibrate like crazy. I'd rather have a tighter sounding low b and be louder in the mix myself.
 

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