sub bass vs mid bass - Page 3

I can pick out the difference most of the time easily. But yeah, a lot do have a mid-bass bump which I dislike every much. A lot of headphones roll off at the lower bass frequencies as well.

Daft Punk 'Television Rules The Nation' is the sub-bass song tbh. Play it though a pair of speakers with and without a subwoofer and notice the massive difference.

I'm sure it will be good.  I've demoed the HD800 at local meets.  I tried pipe organ music on it once briefly.  But it wasn't a Telarc recording and it wasn't an organ that has a 32' open pipe.  It did pipe organ very nicely but I didn't get to experience its sub bass capabilities.  Next time I'll bring the Telarc version of the Passacaglia and Fugue for the bass experience.  What I did hear with the HD800 was pipes dancing in front of me in a way that the HD600 simply cannot do.  Glorious.  It's like speakers.

 

The HD800 is a neat headphone.  I just wish it had more of a physical feel to the bass.  But how do you get the physical feel from a very open headphone like the HD800?  I don't think it's possible while keeping the bass accurate and not hyped.  The sub bass pedal notes with the D2000 vibrate the headphone and ears physically.  Much like how you get a physical feeling from a subwoofer in a speaker system that is able to actually pressurize the room, well as reasonably close to how you can get that with a headphone.

Great link! I just bookmarked it for myself. Thanks!

I also doubt that any open headphone can reproduce sub-bass in realistic quantities.

 

A nice organ recording for headphones is:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Strauss-Zarathustra-Saint-Sa%C3%ABns-Symphony/dp/B00003Q02G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1254385652&sr=1-1

 

 

I know very little about organs, but the organ specs are here:

 

http://www.latos.org/venues/PCA.html

 

Neat.  I put it on my Amazon wish list.  And a binaural headphone recording at that.  :)

 

It's a theater style organ.  That would make for an interesting version of Saint-Saens Organ symphony.  Theater organs have ranks that are intended more for soloing and having interesting sounds rather than the support roll as needed in much of the Organ Symphony.  For example, the big 32' pedal rank in that organ is a reed stop rather than a more mellower open pipe.  I'm not sure how that would mix in with the orchestra without sounding too solo.  It would be like using a bassoon for bass rather than a double bass.  They're both bass, but one has a sound that sticks out more.  I'm game for a different interpretation of the symphony than I'm used to.  Could be good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieagmEhmnbE- Audible notes from the subcontra (16-32) and hypercontra (8-16) octave

Edited by Happy Camper - 5/26/10 at 3:49pm

I had never heard the Ormandy/Murray recording, but this afternoon I picked it up at the library.  I've always enjoyed the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy, more so live than recorded.  Forty years ago I had a subscription.  I never cared much for the records.  Hard to get a chance to hear Ormandy live these days though.

 

Tonight I've been having fun listening to both recordings back and forth, with a couple different pair of headphones.  The tempo of the performances is similar.  Telarc manages a recording that sounds far better than most symphonic discs on headphones.  It does not have quite the positioning of the binaural Mester/Olivera recording.  For example the timpani of the Mester/Olivera recording seem to me to come from a distinct position left of center.  The timpani of the Philadelphia recording sound like they are on the far right, and somehow get over to the far left as well.  Powerful timpani, but somehow they do not seem as much like live drums because you can't see where they are.

 

Philadelphia is known for its strings and they come through well.  Nothing wrong with Pasadena's strings however.  If anything they are cleaner than Philadelphia's, if not as lush, which may or may not be due to venue.  The St. Francis de Sales church is said to be quite reverberant.  My recollection, and it is only my recollection, is that the Philadelphia Orchestra used a large mechanical delay line for added reverberation in the Academy of Music, which was their home location.  Ormandy would probably have loved EAX effects.

 

The piano of the Ormandy/Murray performance gets lost, but the brass and woodwinds fare better.  The piano of the Mester/Olivera recording is beautiful.  Of the two organs, the Francis de Sales organ is more subtile.  At least that is how I would descibe it.  May be the effect you are speaking of.  I can certainly feel the Pasadena organ more.  At times it seems to overpower the orchestra.  But it is dramatic.  If you are paying to hear an organ, you hear an organ.

 

A small thing, but to my ear Mester brings out the Dies Irae more in the last movement.

 

According to the liner notes, neither recording had any signal processing.  I'd say it's worth having both of them.

One of the most stunning organ recordings I've heard for sheer bass is Jean Guillou's transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition.

That one will definitely give you your 32' fix!

The Tonhalle organ has two 32 foot ranks - Principalflute and Basson. And the recording actually has cautionary language on it not to damage your hearing or equipment by too much volume, as they claim plenty of 16hz content on the CD.

XB700 will produce more subbass than anything, in fact it's the 20 - 80Hz range where the bass is the strongest, it somewhat lacks 100Hz+ punchy midbass even.

I second this.. the ear sensitivity graph is also helpful. 

 

According to that site, the male human voice can only go down to 100hz.. Methinks they've never heard of Andre the Giant.

There's debate about where exactly the limits start and begin, but there's certainly a noticeable difference.  Sub-bass is more of the sort of bass you hear in bassier electronic music (dubstep, drum and bass, trip-hop, etc.) and hip-hop music, and is more of an overall rumbling foundation to that sort of music, usually provided by a keyboard patch or sometimes a bass guitar, whereas mid-bass is the punch/kick/thump that you get from the attack transients of lower frequency sounds, particularly the bass drum.

Well that's what they're usually associated with, but the two can do both.  It's almost akin to people thinking the low rumbling in movies as being sub-bass only.  Kick drums usually have a slap associated with them as well, which lie in the mids.