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Jah, i rather preffer flat, but sometimes, I dream about having enough bass power to shake the whole building.
Reader T. Bloom asks: "Do you tend towards bass frequency-response accuracy, or would you prefer either a little more or a little less bass than measures flat in your listening room?" In other words, how much bass is enough?
I want the string bass and tympani to sound like they are in the room. I want Keith Moon and John Entwhistle to sound like they are in the room, but with volume control. I like to have the room excited by the energy of the sound. If you have good bass you don't need as much overall volume. IMHO
In an ideal situation, flat would be the best, so that when the music asks for huge, thumpy bass, you get huge, thumpy bass; when it should be smooth-flowing musical, it gives you that. In reality, our systems do not have enough dynamics to react well to the sudden increase in bass demands, or the seperation is not good such that the bass covers up other sound, so it'd become a matter of personal choice. I like a little bit more bass for that required impact, if you really want to ask.
I prefer fast, clean, accurate bass that propagates well into the room. It must blend with the mains and be sonically invisible. My TBI Magellan VIII subs won’t tear down the house with booming bass (they don’t boom), but they have flat bass that actually sounds like music.
Bass is an important component of music. It should not be over-emphasized, nor stifled. Rather, bass ought to sound as it was recorded--as it was meant to be heard by the artist/engineer. Bottom line (no pun intended)? One must have the requisite equipment to produce bass as it was recorded. If that means your're listening to Zeppelin and your listening room foundation shakes, so be it. Conversely, if you're listening to chamber music and your floor still shakes, you ought to consider replacing your system piece by piece.
My listening room is "live" 15x22 with a 15 foot cathedral ceiling.On some recordings the bass can be a bit overwhelming and at certain volume levels the low end can become quite incoherent.The room has great reinforcement if not pushed too hard though,so flat is good at my house.
Bass is an inherent part of music. At low volume listening, human ears cannot perceive well both bass and treble because of the Fletcher-Munson effect. In the old days, this was to some extent controlled by a loudness compensation switch on the pre-amp. So bass must should be enhanced for low level listening. Also earphones listening can benefit from a slight boost in the bass region as it is very diificult to get an airtight seal when using these.
if "flat" describes what is actually on the recording, than that is what I want. truthfully, accurate bass requires a willingness to "work the room" - positioning speakers, subwoofer(s), listening chair and adding bass traps until the bass really is "flat". it's not going to come that way out of the box no matter what components you buy...