@noble100 --
Some of the guys over at the AVS forum have true monster sub setups that would indeed be able to bring down the house/apartment building if called upon to "stretch their legs," and that could fill even large auditorium cinemas with bass impact and depth that would satisfy and impress most. I guess having sub setups like that is not about letting them sit idly at <100dB’s, but to feel them in action - loudly at that, and with a physical sensation that would dwarf any typical hifi sub-system. It would be safe to say many of them like their subs run HOT.
Having said that "loud and overpowering" is not all there is to it. I would agree with the mention that there are extremely experienced individuals over there (at the AVS forum) who have close to exhaustive knowledge of sub implementation, and to whom "overkill" is only an approximation to sufficient headroom; headroom being one of the key words and signifier for the measure of bass quality. It’s about achieving 20dB’s of headroom at the minimum, so to have distortion levels in the lower single digits even at the loudest levels you’d ever desire down to below 20Hz. You would think it’s only about blowing your hair/head off with über-SPL’s, but from the setups in this caliber I’ve heard there’s nuance and definition in abundance, and not least a relaxed, enveloping and totally effortless presentation that’s quite addictive. I definitely subscribe to the duality of "power and definition," and this way you’ll potentially get both in measures hard to describe.
Generally I find audiophiles to be almost intimidated by or ridiculing air displacement prowess and high sensitivity and SPL capabilities. It’s too easy and reductive just labeling it as an in-every-case brute-ness, and at the same time robbing it of the "sophistication" audiophiles are so eager to pursue. Again, there’s more to than that..
(I am familiar with the ’crazy home theater guys’ typically loitering at AVSforums and other a/v sites with their brute force approach to reproducing bass in a home environment. However, I have too much respect for the supporting mechanisms and other surfaces in my home to adopt this ’Bringing Down the House’ approach. I can’t recall ever desiring more bass listening to any source or content. Besides, the supplied amp has controls for setting the overall level - I can recall tweaking that and the crossover frequency (currently the level is set at about half and cthe rossover at about 40 Hz))
Loud and overpowering is not my conception of ideal bass. My version of ideal bass for my combo ht and music system is more nuanced, having the dual qualities of power and definition required for state of the art bass response reproduction of both.
Some of the guys over at the AVS forum have true monster sub setups that would indeed be able to bring down the house/apartment building if called upon to "stretch their legs," and that could fill even large auditorium cinemas with bass impact and depth that would satisfy and impress most. I guess having sub setups like that is not about letting them sit idly at <100dB’s, but to feel them in action - loudly at that, and with a physical sensation that would dwarf any typical hifi sub-system. It would be safe to say many of them like their subs run HOT.
Having said that "loud and overpowering" is not all there is to it. I would agree with the mention that there are extremely experienced individuals over there (at the AVS forum) who have close to exhaustive knowledge of sub implementation, and to whom "overkill" is only an approximation to sufficient headroom; headroom being one of the key words and signifier for the measure of bass quality. It’s about achieving 20dB’s of headroom at the minimum, so to have distortion levels in the lower single digits even at the loudest levels you’d ever desire down to below 20Hz. You would think it’s only about blowing your hair/head off with über-SPL’s, but from the setups in this caliber I’ve heard there’s nuance and definition in abundance, and not least a relaxed, enveloping and totally effortless presentation that’s quite addictive. I definitely subscribe to the duality of "power and definition," and this way you’ll potentially get both in measures hard to describe.
Generally I find audiophiles to be almost intimidated by or ridiculing air displacement prowess and high sensitivity and SPL capabilities. It’s too easy and reductive just labeling it as an in-every-case brute-ness, and at the same time robbing it of the "sophistication" audiophiles are so eager to pursue. Again, there’s more to than that..