"Bass should blend in with the music. Bass should push the music forward, not drown it."
Yes, of course.
I play the tuba in our band and just got back from a marching band pre-event. We met with another school and critiqued each other's performance. I wish my tuba would allow more airflow, but when I try and play low notes at high pressure/volume/intensity the resistance from the tuba is too much, causing lip vibration to stop altogether.
The deep bass and low-end of the sound is what helps make a huge crescendo so exciting. If the bass isn't there, I don't hear dynamics. This is why I'm annoyed that I can't put more air through the tuba. Our band is 78 people and we have 2 tubas.
Basically what you said is common sense. You want bass that drives the music forward and gives it LIFE without being so strong that detail in the music is masked. The reason you probably think I like EXTREME SPL bass is because I'm always talking about how I need more bass...well... I don't have much bass in the first place. 112dB at 50hz is probably 3-5dB short of what I need for peaks. At 30hz...90dB is like 30dB short of what's needed. Can you see why I'm always wanting more bass? The bass doesn't balance the music. I've been working on speaker placement, which improved the situation, but still in a couple years from now I'll get a subwoofer built and operating. Until then, you'll still hear about my bass craze.
Seriously though, the bore on my tuba isn't large enough (it also has a few dents). Ah, well.
1 2 3 4 FORWARD MARCH! Left Left.. Left 2 3 4 ... Left Left .. Left 2 3 4....
Competition in less than 24 hours..
On another note, my room must be really weird because Nick said his UltraCube 10 was shaking the walls and stuff. I blew mine trying to get enough volume. The speakers I have right have over 3 times the displacement overall (same amount of power though) than that UltraCube did, so I don't quite get where the bass is.
I have a HUGE opening on one side of the room into a 6000 cubic foot room. I have a "semi-" cathedral ceiling. It doesn't quite come to a point. It stops a big before the point and leaves a flat ceiling about 4 feet wide.
Unrelated but tangible, I did some things with my pre-amp which seriously quieted it down (tubes) and am now able to drive much more significant voltage into my amps without any yellow or red protection lights popping up. The harmonic distortion the tubes were encountering greatly diminished my ability to drive my speakers.
