-=> Quoting Bonnie Goodwin to Greg Kurth <=-
-> I think that's exactly why 8" woofers sound better than larger
-> woofers for kick drums. Their speed (easier for the amp to move
-> them).
        I wouldn't be so quick to judge all 8" faster or all 15"
slower.  Someone on Usenet told me they thought my Definitive PF-1500
15" Sub was a bit mushy sounding compared to a Velodyne 15" model they
were comparing it to.  I haven't done such a comparison, but I found
it hard to believe my sub was mushy sounding.  It has never come
across that way to me.  I recently located the nearest Sunfire dealer
and went up to listen to the new Sunfire "True" Subwoofer that uses
raw amplifier power to overcome the limitations of a smaller driver
(the driver in question is a 10" woofer with an 8" usable surface area
and a passive radiator of the same size in a push-pull configuration).
        While the Sunfire was downright astonishing in its ability to
deliver massive amounts of deep bass, I was expecting a MAJOR
improvement over my own sub in terms of speed (it's all too easy to
believe criticism) considering how everyone is just raving over this
subwoofer about its speed of transients because of the small woofer
with the big sound.  I tried a couple of discs with deep bass and a
disc that I thought proved my sub was slow.  It turns out the disc was
laced with a synthesizer (I never realized this for some reason, but
the guy at the dealer was quick to point this out when I started
commenting how the Sunfire sounded just as bad playing the same track
with the main speakers turned off).  The bass drum was actually much
higher and the synth was being used to add "rumble" to the mix.
        While the test conditions weren't great (the sub was not in an
ideal location), I couldn't tell by aural memory any significant
improvement in speed on various tracks.  Other than being impressed by
a box not much larger than a basketball producing the same kind of
bass levels my own much larger sub produces, I left less than
impressed considering all the hype.  I actually feel much better about
my own sub again and have turned it back up to levels I enjoy instead
of levels I "thought" were less instrusive with a "slow" subwoofer.
        Turning it back up to 20dB above "flat" (which for some reason
sounds the best to me...maximum satisfaction with minimum distortion,
going more starts to sound artificial.  I think the reason is that
many recordings should be played "about" 20dB louder to be played back
at the level they were recorded at, but my ears don't like the rest of
the spectrum that loud with Rock...I must be getting old :), resulted
in Kick drums suddenly coming to the forefront instead of buried in
the music on various tracks.  In particular, the track "Space Dog" on
Tori Amos's UNDER THE PINK album struck me as having a particularly
realistic sounding kick drum.  For a 15" woofer, it didn't sound the
least bit slow.  I just got that nice "kick you in the stomach"
feeling of a real drum that sounded very punchy.  By various
measurements I was doing at the same time, the it seemed to be
centered around 60Hz or so, which was probably putting out 100-105dB
C-weighted with the rest of the music around 80-85dB A-weighted.
 BG> in my studio, I use a pair of 18" woofers as subs in my monitor
 BG> system with Klipsch on top, 100 watts on each sub. It would
        How well does 100 watts control an 18" sub?  I'm a little
surprised as most 18" subs I've seen typically have 400-1000 watts or
so dedicated to them.
 BG> probably be better to go mono and bridge the power amplifer to 
 BG> get additional power and coupling from the cabinets, and in a
 BG> live sound situation I would probably do just that.
        If a recording isn't reproduced at "live" levels in a
recording studio, how does a recording engineer mix down a recording?
I'm just curious if there might be a connection between why there's so
much variation in sound quality when it comes to live recordings.
I've read somewhere that sometimes a recording may be recorded live at
a venue and mixed down in a recording studio and that the recording
engineer has to go by memory and what sounds good to them when they
mix it.  The person suggested that this is why some recordings sound
great while others sound like crap; that it's a hit & miss sort of
operation since there's no absolute reference available.  Would you
describe this as accurate or does your experience lead you to a
different conclusion?
 BG> However, I think you are still discussion an application of subs
 BG> for a car, which in itself is topic duplication and can be better
 BG> talked about in CAR_AUDIO echo on many of these fine Fidonet
 BG> systems. 
        Hey, I'm not here to discuss Car Audio and I like kick drums
too! ;-)
 BG> Your use of two 8" for subs does have some merit. A very popular
 BG> bass amplifier was the Ampeg SVT which used 6 6146 tubes for the
 BG> finals, and two cabinets of 8-10" speakers. Talk about a cabinet
 BG> that could SPEAK! 
        Have you seen the Sunfire Sub?  I couldn't believe my eyes or
my ears when I saw something not much larger than a basket ball
producing bass as if it were an 18" sub.  (It's actually flatter at
20Hz than my 15" sub supposedly)  Talk about a little giant.
 BG>  As to the original question of how to strip out a bass drum from
 BG> everything else because you want to only hear it, I still
        I thought he said he wanted to hear it better, not 'only' hear
it.  I think he has a point to a certain degree.  If I have my system
set to flat bass response, the kick drum tends to sound like a toy
kick drum.  A real drum set isn't going to sound like a tv commerical.
At sane levels, most recordings' kick drums don't sound like real
ones.  Unless I want to blast myself silly (to the point where bass
begins to become "flat" in relation to the rest of the spectrum in
terms of human hearing), cranking up the sub can make the bass
instruments sound more realistic.  I tend to listen to all music at a
set level and adjust to the volume only to compensate for average
levels on CDs.  At this level (80-90dB average A-weighted), 20dB
C-weighted bass (20-90Hz above Flat C-weighted at 150Hz) seems to do
the trick for most recordings.  Not only kick drum, but "real" bass
drums, the bottom octave of the bass guitar, organ pedals,
synthesizers, etc. all sound better for this listening level range.
Sort of a "loudness" compensation, really.
 BG> strongly object to your motives from many points of view, but
 BG> it's your ears and your life, but I have to pity your neighbors
 BG> who must be subected to your desire for twisting mixes well
 BG> beyond any musical usefulness and will deny any responsibility
 BG> for any information here that you may misuse!
        Geez, Bonnie, because I like bass, does that make me an
unfriendly neighbor too?  (actually fortunately for my neighbors, the
house is well insulated and the listening room is mostly underground)
I think you may be jumping the gun a bit here.  I think he just wanted
to know if he could isolate a kick drum to a dedicated driver.  Let's
not assume trunk flapper automatically.  
 * AmyBW v2.14 *
... "Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite magesty and calm.
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