I guess what I'm getting at, in terms of music, the lowest note of a piano is 27.5 Hz. There are only three notes lower than 40 Hz.

We covered this all in another thread, but we had figured the lowest note on a bass guitar was just over 40 Hz (although one person thought they could be tuned as low as 35-ish.)

I don't know, do you listen to a lot of bassoon?

Kick drums are up around 70 to 90 Hz and "chest thump" resonance is around 70-90.

Cowbell is up at...

...well I don't know, but you can never get enough cowbell...

So although it impressive to "go low" and we all strive to have a flat response as low as possible, I wonder if you have ever looked at whatever music you listen to on a frequency analyzer?

I might have to try that with some music. I have tons of software to look at things like this...

I'm sure at some point claiming an efficient 20 Hz is just for bragging rights, right?

I'm not trying to start a flame war, but just wondering what is realistically necessary?

 

And just to add a little to the topic at hand, here is a link to my in-cabin sub install.

(Sorry for all the pics, but the main thing is I have hyperlinks in the first part of my post to several other in-cabin subs. Modifry's is a great thread that has even more info, and his install is linked in my thread.) The threads might give you some ideas on possible location choices in the S2K cabin.

LINK

Interestingly my subwoofer is the same size as my midbass components. However, as flitcroft and others clearly show above, it is not the SIZE of the speaker, but the design and construction of the speaker and chamber that determine its frequency characteristics and SQ. Other qualities (distance, power supplied, efficiency) determine SPL.

For more examples of incabin 8's and 10's, please see the "installs" sticky at the top of the forum. There are some excellent examples there.

Koala, I'm curious as everybody else where you are targeting your install?

 

Like everything else it depends on the listener and their ears. Bass is largely felt as pressure below 18-20hz (some say 30hz) and is generally not heard. Further, CDs generally can't record/playback music below 20hz.

So, why would you want it at all? My answer: simply, because those frequencies exist in reality. When you hear loud booming noises some of the energy is reproduced as pressure that is inaudible, but still part of the experience. If you extrapolate that thought to music, the vibrations at a lower hz than you can hear simply vibrate your body. But just because you can't hear them (clearly) doesn't mean they aren't there. If you've ever heard a very large bass drum up close or an organ playing it's lowest octave you've experienced the feeling of bass. There's no magical saran wrap in front of you that clips vibrations at 20hz so all pressure is clearly audible. That's sort of why you'd want the ability to reproduce very deep tones. It adds more life to the low end of your music.

As far as music that has notes this low, it's increasing all the time. Since the widespread use of the modified Roland 808, hip hop and techno have had steadily increasing amounts of very deep bass. With computers, it's even easier to pick a tone and loop it as a hook. I have a few popular hip hop CDs that lose about half their audio if you play the music without a subwoofer. One more answer: deep bass is very trendy right now.

 

Size has a lot to do with freq response, again, depending on your application. to state that size has nothing to do with freq response is just plain wrong.

maybe in terms of a sub, but not the fact of tweeters. how come they dont make a 12" tweeter?

i would like to also point out size of the cone does have some affect on freq response. not as important as other factors like Qts., box and so forth, but a larger woofer will have a lower freq response when played at free air.

 

<shrug> Meredith does keep telling me that size matters...

 

wrong forum buddy

 

Are you sure? I mean sure about the physics? I don't know the answer to that but I don't see why a loudspeaker playing high frequencies could not be 12" across. I've never heard of something like that, probably because it's terribly inefficient to move that much mass that fast, but that doesn't mean it's impossible either.

I think you're saying that it's easier to move (vibrate) more mass slower and less mass faster. That is true, and I would guess that that is the reason why low frequency speakers are bigger in size than high frequency speakers. I think this is the correlation to size and frequency response. But remember my post above to Rat, he said subs can't be smaller than 12" and I showed him a great true subwoofer that was a few cm across (I didn't say it above but those headphones are three-way -- they have separate high, mid, and subwoofer speakers). I don't doubt that some monster system in the future (maybe Woodstock 2100) could have tweeters that are huge. Someone could do it just for the sake of doing it...

 

The lack of a 12" tweeter is simple... why make it larger when you get the same performance from a smaller package. If you could make the disc rigid enough, a 12" disc tweeter could be made to have the same frequency response as a 1" disc. From that standpoint, size doesn't matter. With the correct materials and engineering, it can be done, but it begs the question "why?"

With the correct design I can get the same frequency response from an 8" as I can from a 12" woofer. I may not be able to get the same SPL, as that is affected by the size of the moving air mass with all else being equal... but the frequency response can still be the same. To say "a larger woofer will have a lower freq response when played at free air" is correct only in terms of standard designs, but can be proven incorrect with a better quality and smaller speaker with the proper design. As a general rule of thumb, the statement may be correct, but it's not a hard and fast fact.

 

Oh, forgot to mention... there ARE huge tweeters in existence. Planar tweeters several feet high and wide exist (electrostatic). Not only are they capable of the high frequencies typical of tweeters, but they're also approaching woofers in their dynamic range.

 

This is too much. You all need to go to a sound quality event this summer. Let me know how many of them are running "8" SUBS". You will not see one unless you stop at Walmart on the way.