®
The Truth About Bass And
The Programmable
Frequency Match Filter
Now that digital audio is the favorite musical source, there’s
more low bass running around in a typical system. Low bass
injects large amounts of power into ANY kind of speaker — up to
60% of your amplifier’s output is being used to reproduce fre-
quencies under 100Hz. That can really tax a system which is
driving multiple speakers from a single amplifier channel. The
second problem is that bass produces heat in the speaker. If more
heat is built up than the speaker can dissipate, the driver coil can
literally go into meltdown (or worse).
In addition, ultra-low bass and small speakers don’t always get
along, ESPECIALLY when you DO have ample power. The low
bass music content can cause over-excursion: The speaker cone
attempts to travel farther than its physical limits, potentially
causing damage (in some cases you can actually hear a clacking
sound!). Even before destruction sets in, there are other problems
with feeding super-low bass to small speakers. Most bookshelf
and in-wall loudspeakers are 2-way systems. That means that the
woofer also handles a large part of the critical midrange area.
When the woofer is bashing around trying to reproduce unrealisti-
cally low bass, it’s ability to produce midrange is compromised
due to intermodulation distortion. So not only don’t you get low
bass, you get lousy vocal and instrumental reproduction.
Pragmatically, it boils down to this: If you want ultra-low,
foundation-shaking bass from an in-wall speaker, you should add
in a separate subwoofer, a somewhat expensive approach. A more
economic approach is to equalize the speaker for maximum low
bass output WITHIN IT’S PRACTICAL RANGE and eliminate
The Truth About
Bass & The
Programmable
Frequency
Match Filter
14
Summary of Contents for Architect 500
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