Originally Posted by
DirtyBumOAK510
Thread revival!
I just asked this one on Facebook and I got some answers but not necessarily the facts that I'm hoping Justin and others here can bring.
So I have heard stuff like "You can't hear distortion in a subwoofer the same you can in a midbass", or that distortion in a subwoofer isn't a big concern due to how we hear those frequencies. I've also heard people say that low distortion subwoofers (such as XBL, Brahmas, C12XL, Ravens etc) suddenly make people get used to what a "low distortion" subwoofer sounds like.
So how much distortion is audible below 100hz? between 100hz-1000hz? Tweeters?
Part of where I was getting at is that a lot of amplifiers claim "less than 1% distortion", and we often shoot for .05 or less. With Dacs, these numbers can go into the .001 or lower. I've read on Audio Science Review many articles about the hard numbers of inaudibility for Crosstalk, THD, S/N etc. But how do these apply to subwoofers? Specifically for choosing an amp for a very "low distortion" subwoofer. I've also seen graphs from subwoofer makers that will show at what frequency their subwoofers get localized, which if I remember right was due to distortion where it suddenly becomes localized. So typically we have the rule of thumb that subwoofers become localized above 100hz. S/N ratio of 120db is completely inaudible unless you have "golden ears".
Where's the data!? What's the number?! What can and can't we hear below 100hz (typical subwoofer duty)