I do the PA thing for bands in bars on weekends. My PA rig has a 24 db/octave rolloff at 40hz, and is largely flat from there up. My bass horns are dual folded horns in very large and heavy enclosures, with 2 Eminence Delta 15 in each. I cross over to the mids at about 130 hz. I drive both cabs with 1300 watts each. I'm carrying about 400 lbs of speaker to reproduce Kick drum, some electric bass notes, and keyboards. Yet, I really feel we need all of the above to make the system sound as powerful as it is.
The thing I have found, is if the system has good extension into the bass, it can SEEM to be loud, but it is not. A good thumpin' kick has the fundamental at 80 Hz, 2nd harmonic at 160. Bump up the 160 and lo and behold, the kick seems much louder.
With CD playback, it is very rare that I see (on the RTA) that we approach 40 hz, much less anything below.
The subharmonic synths (aphex, et al) on the market are actually making the sub-fundamental. The psyco-acoustic processor boxes actually increase the second harmonic to make it appear the fundamental is more powerful.
The key for my rig is to use folded horns on the bass, rather than the dual 18's per side, which produce lots of harmonic distortion relative to the horns.
Loud CLEAN bass is good...
Larry
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