35Hz - 25kHz -- A Partial 'Purist'?

Stehno how much music am i missing below say 40hz..very little in most classical music..i prefer to do w/o a sub than to make all manner of attemps to adjust readjust..and so on..i'm into a super superior quality midwoofer AND a top quality amp..if i did not have a tube amp and wanted soild punch i would get a electroacompaniet amp

Good question, Tweekerman. If Telarc's Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture real cannons instead sound like shots fired from a .22 pistol, how much have you missed?

How about Telect's Copland Fanfare for the Common Man cd track 2 where the kettle drums(?) are pretty closely miked, but I have no idea what what these would sound like rolled off at 40Hz. The decay and reverberation continue forever on one or two of these strikes. But some would never know this.

I have a 14 year old Telarc movie score cd. The score from Back to the Future has a deep synthesizer running through about 2/3rd's of the entire piece. If you had monitors dropping off around 40Hz, you would probably never know it.

I have a 15 year old Tracy Chapman pop cd that has some very deep bass (synthesizer I believe). My Aerial 10T go to 26Hz, and the bass notes on this drop off without the sub at around 24 or 25 Hz perhaps. With the sub turned on the bottom goes deeper and continues rather than dropping off.

How about Herb Alpert's Greatest Hits cd (a fun cd) where on the opening of Rotation on track 17, there is a very, very deep percussion that is strong. Without a sub, one would never know it's there. Played it on a friend's system who had an NHT sub two (I don't like this boomy sub at all and neither does he) and the deep notes compressed, muffled, and disappeared. It sounded terrible.

A musician friend brought over a pipe organ music cd because he wanted to hear what he might be missing. He couldn't believe how much deeper, fuller, lifelike, and more 3-D the music sounded with a sub.

These are just a few of my numerous examples of what you might miss.

As for adjusting and re-adjusting, I've tweaked my sub maybe 6 or 7 times times in the last 2 years. Shoot! Some guys swap out their tubes more often than that.

Let me ask you: If you installed a high filter cutoff at say 16kHz where everything above is now gone, what have you missed?

You probably think I'm crazy for even asking such a question. But that is what puzzles me. How can so many be so willing to disgard musical info at one end of the spectrum but not at the other end or anywhere else in between?

Isn't every musical note the equivalant to every other musical note?

If not, then who, aside from the composer, is qualified to determine which notes are worth retaining (reproducing) and which notes are to be discarded? And please don't say 'HP'.

-IMO

yes i would like to have all the musical presence i can get but like every choice in driver selection there is a trade off...i'm sure IF i found a sub i liked there is a possibility that that the system would have a monitor + sub sound...i would be nagged by the "split in the seam" sound...like you say every now and then i may miss something..but at the moment i've found a 8 inch midwoofer that supposingly goes down to 30 hz..that's good enough for me..and this driver has very sweet upper midbass qualities..the biggest problem today is the lack of quality speakers..thats why i'm a big fan of "kits"..you have some choice in drivers and xover parts...most all the audiogonners disagree and vote commercial labs engineering abilities "the tried and true" over the solo designers abilities ..so a good sub may not be for everyone but great sounding monitors are..

Tweekerman, I don't think anybody would disagree with you when you state that every choice in a driver selection employs trade-offs or compromises.

Therefore, again I ask, why are people so willing to accept the trade-off's or compromises of the drivers reproducing the frequencies between say 30Hz and 40kHz, but yet are not willing to accept like trade-offs or compromises of those drivers capable of reproducing the frequencies between say 16Hz and 30Hz?

Are you implying that these lower frequencies are so important that unless they are 'perfectly' reproduced, they should remain untouchable, unapproachable, and thereby inaudible?

Stehno taking into consideration your previous fine and excellent post on the thread "best 8 inch woofer" (i still say that the SEAS may offer overall best)...what i'm getting at..is that i'm working hard on getting a great 3 way design first which will deliver SUPERIOR hz's from say 30hz (SEAS W22!!) to the uppers hz's (RT8P!!!)..if i can accomplish this then i may consider to move on to the sub hz's..BUT under one condition...i don't want any 10 12 or larger (sub) woofer interfering with the seemless sweet sound of the SEAS W22 + SEAS 12CY + RT8..the one way to do this is to get a active xover...but they are $$$..i would go bryston or better marchand 4 way (tube) active xover..and the one sub that comes to mind is the new FOCAL series called ADIOM..the 11WX 13WX 15WX...the 11WX's would be first choice..importantly keep in mind they are expensive..but check out their super tech magnet design!!!..the 15 monster weighs over 50 lbs!!!so yes i fully agree with you about capturing the complete music in the last few but important hz's...but i'm afraid there are not very many subs that do a good job at it..no i'm not a perfectionist..just like to get best bang for hard earned dollar...here is a senario: AUDIOM 13WX + SKANNING 8inch + RAVEN 3 + MARCHAND XM126 ACTIVE TUBE XOVER...try to top that!!!!