Posted by Nowell on October 29, 2001 at 04:57:43:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: subwoofers and upright vs bell front posted by Nowell on October 26, 2001 at 15:57:38:
To clarify, when I say audible differences in regards to sub-bass, I mean loudness, not timbre. Sub-bass sound waves are too long to be affected by diffraction loss the way a mid or tweeter is, causing timbre changes due to extreme interaction of the various frequencies (reinforcements and cancellations). Alot goes on in the upper range that is noticeble, but for the most part bass just gets +/- some boom. Of course there are other noises from a subwoofer besides the "pure" signal, such as spider noise, port noise, and enclosure resonance. These are usually indicators of design flaws, underpowering, or poor filtering (passive or active or both).
Then again, this has nothing to do with tubas, other than parallels which can be drawn.
Vibrations = poor tuba construction (loss of energy along transmission line)
Underpowering = not using enough air
Port noise = possibly turbulence in the small end (leadpipe, valves, mouthpiece, etc)
Room placement (standing waves) = most players have noticed this (small room vs big
room, high ceilings etc)
Size = bigger is smoother, rounder sound
Hmmm... maybe there is a point to all this afterall.
RWN