I have two subs in addition to Heresy’s and can turn the subs off. I hear ya about clean bass but sometimes it’s nice to get that extra reach on certain albums.
With the Klipschorns I respect PWK’s designers ear and don’t want to futz with it. Fine tuning by tube choices, choice of amplification and to a degree cabling are best left to the users to match their space requirements. I love the Klipschorn’s natural bass reproduction and I’m fortunate to have it.
We thought these were great even before the integration was sorted out. Excellent bass dynamics. Good stuff. come on over.
Thanks. They are very imposing in my space but the sound field they project completely overpowers their physical presence even at lower listening levels. Sort of unbelievable in a way as compared to my other system. Not close.
Experiences with different sounding systems gives you a scale of bass performance and quality. Some of the best sounding bass quality I have heard was from a set of Spendor D7 speakers driven by a very expensive Jadis 50wpc Class A tube amp. An acoustic bass track I am familiar with was tactile, clean, 3 dimensional and just stunning. Listening to Magico aluminum speakers for example and the bass was hard (distorted) and lacked definition. I don't know of any demo material specifically for this but there are some recordings that can be used. Here is one- Erik Friedlander - Oscalypso (2015) - Something Else!
Acoustic suspension designs can have that quick recovery and very articulate bass. I suspect it is kind of rare, and that some would hear such a presentation and think it was lacking in bass.
Says who? If that's the case we would all be listening to booming bass. Quite the opposite in EU, people are listening to 'lean' sounding speakers most of the time here. They don't like subs so no fear for too much output or boom. If anything, audiophiles here seem to think that no bass is a realistic portrayal . My friend plays standing bass and when I sat him down and played him 'all or nothing at all' (d.krall) he was stunned at how realistic the standing bass sounded (that's what a proper tuned sub adds to a system, fellow EU members ).
I suspect this is absolutely a huge factor. Certainly our Audyssey/ARC and limited REW measurements "before" are far from flat, as is everything I see online with room correction.* Probably if we went around measuring everyone's system, the bass response is NOT flat at all, and many comments/feelings about the bass "these speakers/amp/whatever are thin/boomy/etc" really have to do with peaks and nulls in the ROOM and not really the speakers and system at all. *this for instance JL Audio Fathom f110v2 powered subwoofer Measurements
It is.. "room" can be the biggest factor it is the very reason if someone ask me how to get a better bass response from there system I will always say.. start with the room rather than jump to what some perceive as the quick fix a sub woofer. As to the question being asked...? what qualities do I like a nice balance of highs, mids and lows with neither over powering the other
Quality over quantity has always been a long-held opinion for me. You can barely hear my SVS 2000 unless the music calls for it. Sometimes on hip-hop or Electronica I'll be startled at how low and loud the notes can get but all my music benefits from the subwoofer! An oldie but a goodie is Rob Wasserman's Duets, a beautiful recording featuring him on acoustic with various vocalists (if you're feeling adventurous, check our Rob's electric abilities on Cosmic Farm. A Fusion funfest that also features an amazing bottom end!).
I added a Schitt Loki equalizer and it adds just the right amount of bottom to my sound. Also am able to trim the highs, if I am playing cds.
I am not sure that specific recording helps. There are tests for quality of bass response though. One is distortion vs. frequency below 200Hz at various loudness levels. The less distortion - obviously the better. Second is residual ringing in step response - should be short and well dumped. Keep in mind that many records are produced with bump at around 80Hz to sound better through small speakers. With full range speakers that will sound like excessive bloated bass. Of cause room resonances are 1000lb gorilla here. You may need to go with active DSP to reduce some room modes uncorrectable by passive means.
