jonheal wrote:
My friend had the subwoofer positioned behind and to the right of us. I
believe he had it crossed-over at 80, or perhaps 100Hz.
That is up in midrange area, so it isn't surprizing that
you could locate it.
Playing test tones was interesting. Unless they've heard a test disc, I
don't think most people realize what a jarring experience it is to
listen to a pure 25Hz tone. It's actually quite uncomfortable,
physically.
Right, down in the 20s, you feel it rather than hearing it.
Many people have never heard clear tones under 30hz.
Most people listen to music in cars over radio, sometimes
even AM, which simply do not have any low frequency signal.
The human ear is amazing, it can fill in signals that are not
really there from the overtones. The classic example is
a telephone, They are only 300hz to 3000hz. All the rest
of the frequencies are added by our brains.
I would offer the suggestion that any directionality one percieves from
really low tones, like lowest notes on a pipe organ are due to the
harmonics that are are accompaning it (and making it more palatable). I
think that extended listening to a pure 16Hz tone without the
accompaning harmonics would probably melt your brain, or at least drive
you batty.
Musical instruments are all about harmonics. That is what makes
a guitar sound like a guitar, a trumpet sound like a trumpet, etc.
Pure test tones are fairly rare, at least until Sean hacked the
SqueezeBox to include a tone generator.
The classic AR3A speaker was amazing, not because it was flat down below
40 hz, but rather because it got any low frequency sound out of a box
that tiny. They were about 2 cubic feet, a foot by a foot by two feet
high. That was tiny compared to serious speakers of the time.
It did it using 'acoustic suspension' which required huge amounts of
power to allow such a tiny box to go that low. Thirty years later,
an AR3A would be considered a very large speaker.
--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html
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