What? A couple of hertz? Not for anyone but superman. I am sure there might be some freaks that can, but you have to have extreme amount of SPL. Equal loudness curves are most certainly about the extremes, that's the point of the averages.


"Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high. "

But even if you were right, the perception of such low frequencies if felt not heard by the ear at any significant level (elephants can't even hear that low), and has no bearing on music production.

Talk to Bruce at Eminent Technologies and get an infrasonic subwoofer.....
Good down to 1 cycle.

You've answered your own question. What is there in pop, hip hop or Adele below 29Hz, or even below the low E of a bass (at about 40Hz), that is meant to be there? Not much, I don't think.

IMO for those genres you would be better off with a sealed box design that has an apparently inferior low-end spec, than a reflex box which has a better low-end spec but poorer transient response. That difference is audible - and when I say "audible" I mean humongous.

The ears have something like 50dB dynamic range. Rest is handled by compression. When you are close to the mains you hear full range at high levels and the ears compress. Further away the highs will be more attenuated compared to the lows and the ears compress less which can give this impression depending on the actual circumstances. This does not change the physics of sound which is not open to personal interpretation.

And it's ridiculous to compare the levels inside a car with that a block away.

What I'm saying is that it does not casue motion sicknes by definition... the fact that it can casue discomfort of various kinds sometimes is another thing. I hope you realize the difference.

Of course I have. I would not write aout it if I hadn't studied it. Please act like an adult.

I know exactly what I am listening to thank you!

Sorry to hear that you feel that. Me and other does not.

I wish I was young and I'm also wise enough to never exspose myself to sound levels that can casue significant discomfort or damage to my ears. I use ear plugs when I go to bars and concerts. I avoid loud concerts etc. I did that when I was young as well just listening to my gut feeling when it comes to loud sounds.

I think the government has low herz weapons.

Just saying.

Zero can kill.

Not superman, average people. Also no extreme SPL nessecary which I already wrote about if you did read the whole thread..

That's true. But it's very diffuse as well.

Wrong. Study the subject yourself or read about the work that has been done by others.

Ears detect before the body. Approx 20dB delta according to studies.

Please point me to the studies you have on elephants.

The significance for music production/playback depends on who you ask and what kind of music we are talking about. For some it's important, for some not.

For solo violin, of course not. For japanese drums, movie sound tracks, electronica it's another story.

I have one that only does 0.

Yes, the shock wave from a nuce bomb is pretty low in frequency and can be dangerous.. But we all seem to coope fine with weather changes and going by plane..

Yours maybe?

It's good to have a full range monitor to see what's down there no matter if you cut it or leave it. In the end most people have small speakers with limited LF extension and dynamic capability and therefore obviously it's good to check the material on something like that as well.

The spec "19Hz" or "29Hz" does not say anything since no tolerances are given. That said the Genelec subs are most likely spec'ed with the same standard. What can be more important is the output capability.

A well designed speaker with a more or less flat response to 40Hz is plenty for most music.

The best advice as usual is to try to get both sub's to your room and try them out.

No my ears have 60dB, 10dB better than yours!

Although the difference in time domain performance (between closed and ported) is tiny compared to the room contribution. That's what has given ported speakers bad rep. Partly the fact that plenty of them are poor designs, far from well balanced and partly becasue the ported speaker typcially is more flat which means it will drive the room modes to higher levels than the typical closed box. If you tame the room or listen outdoors, you get another impression of ported.

I wasn't expecting this kind of response. I'm only trying to help. There's a lot of misinformation out there, and I've had to learn the hard way so many times. I know where you are coming from, been down that path only to turn around and climb out, so now I want to warn others,... or the puke, deafness, blown speakers and poorly translating mixes were all even less valuable

By spreading misinformation and also saying that I lie?

Exactly, such as some of what you post.

No, you don't know were I'm coming from. And what is it that I'm saying that you feel you have to warn people about?

I have a bit of a problem following you here.

I presents facts, I don't tell people what to do. I think people should be served with correct info and use their own brains. But one advice is of course to avoid loud concerts etc. as that may give you problems. Or use protection, stand a bit further away etc. Don't do drugs or alcohol and go to high SPL clubs or concerts etc. since that mess up your ability to judge when it's to much (in many ways of course..)

A low frequency capable system is not dangerous in any way. High SPL's for long times repeatedly is dangerous. I think they teach you that in school. At least they've done that for more than 30 years where I live.

Organisations like NIOSH, OSHA, ANSI, IEC uses A-weighting for noise exposure for a reason.

This has become a physics thread, and has discontinued to remotely address the OPs question. This is not a real-world conversation about monitors, nor music.

It has devolved into a pissing contest, so I'm pronouncing Audiop the winner so that we can get this nonsense out of the way.

Now, was the OP ever asked what type of music he was producing?

He told it himself in the first post.

Audio engineering IS physics, and physiology, and psychoacoustics..

I'm glad you came back, a bit pissapointed by your attitude.

Buuut.. of respect for OP, let's continue the more hard core part of the discussion in this thread:
Hearing at low frequencies

Ears don't detect anything below 18 at even the best human range. That's like saying 400khz is detected by the ears. The brain cannot perceive these things as sound. You are sadly mistaken.

Ah, so he did. I stand corrected.

My question to Adonis is, of all the instrumentation that you'll be employing, what is the lowest frequency that your monitoring equipment will be required to handle? A pipe organ, for instance may go down into the neighbourhood of 16 Hz, whereas the low E on a bass guitar is a more reasonable 41 Hz. I happen to think that this plays a rôle when considering an equipment purchase.

It is not my aim to dismiss the good intention of the above advisors, but 99% of your consumers will not give a damn about RIAA curves, nor their room resonances and the like. From what I gather through casual observation, most of these passive listeners use Chinese mass-produced earbuds or some popular-to-be-seen-wearing brand of headphones, nothing capable of uncoloured, faithful reproduction, in any case. Then they're going to EQ it into some weird contorted curve that would make us all cringe. The bottom line is that much of your love and passion will go right out the window. But as artists, that cynical monkey will not allow us to approach the process in such cavalier fashion.

That being said, I see no reason why a sub, capable of reproducing the lowest frequency you intend to ever realistically generate, along with an additional 10 Hz of cushion, wouldn't be sufficient. But that's just my opinion.

No, you don't, You present crap that you think are facts, because it gives you the emotional feeling of being right. The only way anyone can hear anything under about 20hz is under ideal condition, then it only goes under 20 a few hz, maybe 12 at the lowest. That has nothing to do with real world applications. A "couple hz" is a fantasy. Even large whales cannot hear down that low. Maybe 10hz.

Yes I do.

If you want to argue you should make sure you either have studied yourself (which you obviously have not) or at least educated yourself (which you obviously have not) on the work that has been done on the subject.

Please go to this thread and read the papers I linked to:
Hearing at low frequencies


You are wrong.

It's not fantasy, it's a fact.

I never studied whales, did you?

Please respect OP and my wish above now and continue in that other thread after you have read the paper and have some clue about what we are talking about.

Oh, I missed this one.

Where's the logic behind that? The threshold and capabilities of hearing is something you find out thru studies, not by pulling a "400kHz" (kHz, not khz) number out of your pocket.

I'm not sad and I'm not mistaken. I hope you are not sad, you are mistaken though.

Read the papers!

And I will not discuss this in this thread anymore. For those who are interested in a constructive discussion and to learn. Please go to the other thread.

Guess you didn't read the articles (not peer reviewed papers). "the tonal sensation ceases around 20 Hz" That's what hearing is. Of course we can perceive lower frequencies, but that's not the same as hearing them. I can hear two clicks in a second, is that the same as hearing 2hz? "If the frequency is gradually lowered from 20 Hz, the tonal sensation disappears, the sound becomes discontinuous in character and it changes into a sensation of pressure at the eardrums." To say that a non-tonal pressure at the eardrums is hearing is just plain stupid. I can squirt water in your ear and you'd feel pressure on your ear drum. Is that hearing? Honestly?


You are trying to make an officious technical claim which is vacuous at best that has nothing to do with the OP's question, then you say "respect the OP". That's the very definition of the emotional need to be right rather than being helpful. You are expressing the functional equivalent of saying "it depends on what your meaning of 'is' is".

A subwoofer specd -10 dB at 20 Hz would not be in the same league with a subwoofer specd -1 dB at 20 Hz.

It would be up to each individual to decide what is or is not useful to hear. I mainly wanted to build a system flat as low as possible (without spending a fortune) "just because" I was curious to hear what music sounds like thataway. I like it, but many nice records do not have much content below 40 Hz. Below 40 Hz is not exactly a necessity.

One thing I appreciate-- I don't play loud but in the past there have been times I would be playing something like a nice un-compressed sampler acoustic bass patch, and it could put the hurt on "pretty good" speakers, even at moderate monitoring levels. Its nice to have a speaker hefty enough not to prematurely crap out on sources such as uncompressed acoustic bass.

The nature of the subwoofer and the nature of the room will both affect how low it will go (and how flat). For going low, sealed subs could be best. Vented subs in a large room can get ultra-loud down to 30 or 40 Hz, then wimp out below that. A strong sealed sub with lots of xmax has potential of going lower, especially in "tight" rooms where the sealed sub can act like a pressure pump.

In my small 15 foot X 11.5 foot office, I bass-trapped it fairly good for a miserly amateur effort. Floor-to-ceiling 24" X 24" square fluffy fiberglass corner traps and numerous other absorbers. Built about a 6 cu ft sealed sub filled with polyester fiber, Dayton Audio UM-18-22 18" woofer with an inch or so of xmax.

The subwoofer is 1 meter from listening position aimed at my head, as are the mains. It will go fairly flat down to 25 Hz in my room, but my room is relatively "leaky" with two symmetrically placed, always open doorways at the rear of the room, which open out into the entire bottom floor of the house (mostly open doors thruout). The subwoofer makes bass well-below 25 Hz, but begins to roll off about 25 Hz. In a tighter room it could probably go flat to a lower frequency. So far as I could read, the very low bass is almost entirely dependent on xmax in a conventional sealed speaker. So given a certain xmax, the lower you go, the less undistorted SPL you can expect, unless the listening room is practically an airtight sealed tank.

I don't listen to the system loud, just wanted a fairly "full range" system and it can be hard to go real low without appropriate tools. Much more difficult to do 20 Hz at reasonable SPL, compared to 40 Hz at reasonable SPL. It would be scary expensive to build an outdoor concert sound system that can go flat to 20 Hz. It is still slightly expensive to do it in a small room, but at least in a small room there are not so many cubic feet to fill.

And there's the rub. You are an officious pedantic ******. Because I didn't capitalize the "H", you are right. Wow, just wow. Nobody cares about your troll thread, which is why no one has replied to it.

"Hey kids, I am the only adult around here, capitalize your "H's" and remember to tell people they are wrong for calling Budweiser beer, when it's clearly lager. A lot of misinformation out there, and I have links to non-peer reviewed articles from obscure publications that call non-tonal pressure "hearing", so there, kids."

You realize articles are published all the time that claim to prove quantum mechanics wrong, the big bang, Einstein's relativity, etc wrong. They do this because if you can just claim to prove Einstein wrong, you will get more publicity. A perception of sound waves does not mean hearing. A deaf person can perceive infrasonic frequencies as much as people who can hear. Are you now claiming they are not deaf? Really?

This is how I see it. I make songs. I put enough low end in to convey what I want to convey through the music. If it translates well, I am happy.

The party is moved to: Hearing at low frequencies

HAHA, great party. Except no one is there. have fun talking to yourself, kid.