Bass Types

The first thing is that the bass produced by speakers (or subs) is very different from the bass produced by headphones, with the speakers, the bas is also tactile, you can feel it with you chest cavity, your body, with headphones it's justs your ears. Another important point is that with speakers you have to deal with room acoustics, reflections, room modes, can contribute to turn what was originally good bass into a mess.

Is there a difference between the bass of a full range speaker and subs, not as much as on would think. What's needed is to properly set the sub with an appropriately low cut off frequency (80 Hz for example), higher, the bass produce by the sub becomes directional and you hear the sub in the room, if one really need to set the cut off at a higher frequency, one needs 2 subs, both placed at the feet of the speakers. one would also need to place the sub properly in the room, set it at the proper lever (no huge bass bump), set the phase of the sub to match the main speakers etc...

Simply put, a properly set subwoofer is stealthy and doesn't attract attention to itself, it's not very different from a full range speaker, you get more placement freedom with a sub which is an advantage. There are plenty of guide about how to properly use and set subs.

Also different headphones have very different kind of bass response. There are headphones which have their highest peak in bass around say 100~130Hz for example which would be like very high frequencies for a sub or there are those who have their focus around 50Hz. I think headphones vary a lot more in the bass response than comparing different subs with each other, ofc you can notice differences there too but headphones can have very punchy or very loose bass, single-toned or very textured bass, resonance etc I think it's easier to hear differences with headphones.

Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 8/19/11 at 12:46am

Bass responce can be the same for headphones and subs, some subs and headphones go all the way down to 20hz, some roll off at 50hz.

Subs have larger cones and enclosures to displace more air to play lower louder than bookshelfs, there are some bookshelfs than can get low with there smaller drivers, my alesis speakers with there 5.5" drivers can get down 45hz because of there short wide port and enclosure design and high excursion, bookshelfs with larger 8" high excursion drivers can normally get down to 40hz-30hz so then a sub isn't really necessary as it's only gonna add a  few more hertz. All subs carry a -/+3db rating telling you how low they will go you want the lowest possible number of hertz before the sub rolls off by -3db as you will notice the volume drop, the -/+3 rating is normally done at 1watt@1metre , so if you listen louder than 1watt about 89db (because your far away or trying to fill a big space with sound), the sub rolls off by -3db early, for example a sub with a -3db @ 25hz rating at 1watt about 89db , will roll off about 10hz-20hz earlier if you listen at 160watts about 110db. Can low and loud a sub goes depends how much air it can displace the larger the driver and enclosure the lower and louder it can go so bigger is always better. also there are 2types of box design for a sub enclosed and ported, The advantages of a sealed design are, a flatter freq responce , more controled and punchy bass faster , less disortion, less sharp roll off, The advantages of ported are more spl , better efficientcy. A sealed sub would be better suited for low level listening in a small space , a ported sub would be better for higher volumes in larger rooms. Other things affecting the subs sound are the cone material, stiffness and weight of it , a light paper cone will have more efficientcy meaning more spl but will break up more in higher excursion creating more disortion, a stiffer heaver cone will be less effcient less spl but have less disortion.