Everything you know about HiFi subwoofers is... wrong*.
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💫 Summary
The video discusses the misconception about needing large subwoofers and high power amplification for bass in a room, and introduces the concept of repairing the relationship between pressure and velocity of sound waves to achieve better bass response. The speaker explains how the proximity-based subwoofer can correct this relationship and improve the overall bass experience in a room.
✨ Highlights📊 Transcript
✦
Subwoofers don't necessarily require large woofers and high wattage amplification to achieve good bass response.
00:03The belief that you need 18-inch or 20-inch woofers and thousands of watts of amplification for good bass response is incorrect.
Aran Janssen has developed a proximity base controller that restores the pressure and velocity envelope of a soundwave through wave propagation.
With this controller, you can have bass in your room that you can feel, without needing massive subwoofers or amplification.
✦
Despite having multiple subwoofers, some systems still lack bass due to the proximity-based controller not being properly calibrated.
04:11Many systems have an excess of subwoofers but still complain about a lack of bass.
Pressure-based microphones show an abundance of bass in the room, yet it doesn't appear to be present.
The proximity-based controller, when properly calibrated, can provide sufficient bass even with a small 10-inch subwoofer.
✦
The absence of bass in speakers is due to the sound wave being disrupted by the room and the human brain's ability to filter out irrelevant sounds.
08:23The sound wave from speakers is pulled apart by the room, resulting in the absence of bass.
Sound waves should have air pressure and air velocity at a 90° angle, but the room destroys this relationship.
The human brain is capable of filtering out irrelevant sounds, allowing us to hear specific sounds in a noisy environment.
An example is the wind noise being picked up by an iPhone microphone but not heard by our ears.
✦
Adding more subwoofers does not necessarily improve the bass experience.
12:34Increasing the number of subwoofers and power does not guarantee a better bass experience.
The real problem lies in the brain having to work harder to process the additional uncorrelated noise produced by the subwoofers.
Understanding the fundamental of sound pressure and air velocity is crucial in optimizing the bass experience.
✦
Subwoofers are not about hearing the bass, but about feeling it.
21:01Subwoofers generate a sensation of bass that is felt rather than heard.
The sensitivity of hearing dramatically decreases below 20 Hz.
Proximity subwoofers repair the relationship between feeling and hearing bass.
✦
The speaker discontinued a product due to practical reasons but discovered that the proximity sub restores a large part of the pressure envelope wave, resulting in improved sound quality.
25:13The speaker discontinued the product for practical reasons and because they didn't anticipate the additional effect of correcting the wave front.
Natural instruments have harmonics, including even harmonics which generate a pressure envelope wave.
The proximity sub restores a large part of the pressure envelope wave, leading to improved sound quality.
00:03oh my gosh subwoofers man every time I
00:06get into a conversation with a high-end
00:09audio file about subwoofers I always try
00:12to keep my mouth shut why well because I
00:16used to believe all the things that the
00:20predominant
00:22prevalent institutions of audiophilia
00:26all subscribe to which is that for you
00:28to have base in your room you got to
00:32have 18inch woofers 20in woofers 6,000
00:36watts of amplification you need not one
00:39you need not two no ideally you'd have
00:42like one in each corner or something
00:43like that right and of course then I got
00:46educated by the one and great Aran
00:49Janssen whom you will see in this
00:51awesome video coming up and then my
00:54knowledge about subwoofers and actually
00:57getting base response in your room
00:59completely changed right and so I no
01:01longer subscribe to this notion that you
01:04need all these megawatt amps and giant
01:07sized subwoofer
01:09coffins taking up space in your awesome
01:12living room hospice bathroom Boiler Room
01:18Hi-Fi room Den office whatever you have
01:22that you're listening music
01:24to but we also need to understand that
01:28you know subw in general and base in
01:31general in your room is such a pain in
01:32the ass
01:33because the wavelengths are just so
01:37enormously long right you take for
01:40example a 20 htz wave or excuse me a 20
01:43HZ tone the wavelength is about 57 ft
01:47show me a high-fi room that's 57 ft long
01:50for that wave to completely unfold I
01:54don't know of any in fact I know very
01:58few that would even come close to that
02:01and yet we need to get base in our room
02:06and what Aran is really developed is
02:09he's restored the pressure and velocity
02:12envelope of a soundwave through wave
02:16propagation and his understanding of it
02:19and study of it and so with the
02:22proximity base controller you're now
02:24able to essentially have base in your
02:27room that you can feel
02:30and not to be uh remiss of the fact that
02:34if you want base
02:35extension you can still use a subwoofer
02:38of course but to feel so in other words
02:41to extend the base in your room you can
02:43use a subwoofer but to actually feel
02:46that base in your listening position
02:49there's nothing like a proximity base
02:51controller that'll do the trick that
02:53said enjoy the video Let's see what uh
02:56Aran has to say drop your comments below
02:59would love to to hear from you and um
03:02yeah let's uh let's chat thanks
03:10[Music]
03:26guys so Aryan one
03:30there's two topics left in our
03:32conversation piece here that are very
03:34near and dear to me the first one is
03:38explosive it's
03:40bombastic and the topic is
03:45subwoofers
03:47oo aryion 6,000 watts of
03:51amplification twin triple 18in
03:55woofers I mean seriously I'm I'm I'm not
03:59even exag erating actually over the last
04:0110 years I
04:03think there has been
04:06a
04:08explosion no pun intended of subwoofers
04:11on the market that are trying to one up
04:15each
04:16other with ever increasing woler
04:21diameters ever increasing power
04:24envelopes and multiplication factors you
04:27know one sub that's that's Amateur hour
04:31you need at least two if possible get
04:36six and yet I hear some of these systems
04:40with these incredible Subs there's no
04:45base and I I'm like what okay what the
04:48heck dude like how how's this even
04:50possible and
04:51then about 10 years ago 12 years ago uh
04:56I went through the Aryan School of
04:58economics and I learned the truth about
05:02subwoofers proximity based controller
05:06what have you created there are in okay
05:09yeah that's uh that's an interesting uh
05:12subject indeed
05:13because uh I totally agree you have
05:16people with total OV excess of
05:18subwoofers and they're still complaining
05:21that they don't really get any
05:24base and the fun part is especially if
05:27you just poke in measurements
05:30microphone uh which are all just just
05:33pressure based microphones you look at
05:35look at pressure put that into uh the
05:38room there is an abundance of base and
05:40it should be because there are all these
05:42subwoofers and they're uh they're
05:44vibrating like no tomorrow and uh the
05:49the glasses are rattling in the in the
05:51kitchen of the house and so but in the
05:54room still there's no base appears
05:57that's the point here's the point it
05:59appears there is no Bas yep even though
06:02the there is plenty of Bas yeah the the
06:03measurement uh microphone says there's
06:06plenty of bass in fact I remember just
06:08to interject in our old home in Long
06:11Beach if you recall that second room
06:15with Studio B that I always
06:17called had no base you had base in the
06:23kitchen you could feel the base in my uh
06:27uh office across the house house but
06:30there was no base in that
06:33studio and
06:35yet once we got the proximity base
06:39controller dialed in I had plenty of
06:42base with a little 10-in subwoofer yeah
06:47that's uh again I I I had the same issue
06:51like everybody else has okay you set up
06:53your system and you you like to set it
06:55up you get good stereo Imaging and uh
06:58make sure that you don't have have
06:59Reflections on the walls and everything
07:02but then the base sounds really terrible
07:05MH but if you're going to set your your
07:07speakers up to get best base at your
07:10listening
07:11position then everything else doesn't
07:14work so you are looking at two
07:18conflicting uh things basically so I
07:21started thinking okay first how is it
07:23possible that you do not have uh you
07:26don't hear any decent Bas because uh if
07:29I look at the terminals of my speakers
07:32it's definitely going in the the the the
07:35roofers are are vibrating and indeed
07:38like you said you uh you go uh to the
07:41kitchen and uh there your base is in the
07:44kitchen basically and it's how can we
07:46pack it up and bring it back to the
07:48exactly where it needs to be so I
07:50started
07:51to uh theorize a little bit about this
07:54how that is possible and I also went
07:58back to a lot of the the studies that I
08:00did back in the in the 80s um when I
08:03looked at all those technical papers
08:06about sound propagation and and about uh
08:10psycho Acoustics how things are
08:12perceived okay and I kind of found the
08:15the answer there okay and first is the
08:18answer okay why is there now base well
08:21if I put
08:23mic measurement microphone in there
08:25there is base so why is it not there so
08:29the reason basically that that is the
08:31case is that um the the sound wave that
08:36comes from your
08:37speakers is kind of pulled apart as a
08:42result of your
08:43room and if you have a naturally
08:48propagating Soundwave you basically have
08:51uh air velocity and air pressure because
08:54a wave will be consisting of pressure
08:57and air velocity mhm
08:59and if the the the the wave travels
09:02properly the the air pressure and air
09:05velocity should be 90° out of face that
09:08is kind of a natural requirement for a
09:11wave to travel for electromagnetic waves
09:15not any differ but instead of velocity
09:17and pressure you have electrical field
09:19and magnetic field but same same
09:21principles are 100% through in both
09:23cases okay so if you then add that that
09:28your room basically destroys that
09:30relationship MH add that to another uh
09:34interesting characteristic of the human
09:37hearing then you you get to the answer
09:39and the and the interesting part of the
09:41human hearing is that for us and for
09:45animals like basically to be able to
09:48hear specific sounds in uh uh enormous
09:53amount of uh noise of ambient noise
09:57basically your brain is is is capable of
10:00filtering out basically uh certain
10:04sounds that are wrong or
10:07irrelevant and as an example what I uh
10:10always use which is people understand
10:14that something like that happening is
10:16that suppose you and I will uh step out
10:19uh in uh to the outside we're going to
10:22have a discussion but it's kind of a
10:23windy
10:24day and you bring your iPhone you always
10:27have it on your anyway so you bring out
10:29your iPhone start recording the
10:31conversation so we have a conversation
10:33that works perfectly fine um it's a nice
10:37day so the wind doesn't really bother us
10:38very much so we have a discussion and we
10:40uh you record it on the on the iPhone
10:43and then back inside you can listen back
10:45to it and there's something very weird
10:48is happening you immediately know why it
10:50is but uh on the iPhone you hear
10:53basically the the flapper of the Wind on
10:55the microphone yes correct see right hm
10:59H what was that that flapper not on our
11:03ears is our ear shell or so uh shielding
11:07it no it's not the case that flapper on
11:09your ear was just as loud as it was on
11:11the iPhone but since it's a
11:14completely uh nonnatural occurrence for
11:19from a sound propagation point of view
11:21your brain takes it out completely wow
11:24so the flipper is there but you're not
11:27hearing it you're you're not yeah
11:29yeah you're not perceiving it you're
11:31your your ear picks it up but you're
11:34you're kidding and that is never thought
11:37about that fascinating wow so that's
11:41actually the whole
11:42reason why if your
11:46room uh really pulls apart your uh your
11:51uh your naturally uh propagating wave
11:55that your your hearing will it it comes
11:59into your ear because it comes to the
12:00mic the microphone the measurement
12:02microphone your ear will hear it as well
12:05but your brain will out discount it will
12:08say this this is uh ambient noise I
12:11cannot hear the music because of all
12:13this ambient noise so I'll take it out
12:17fascinating and that that is annoying
12:21especially if you just had your 6,000 uh
12:23What uh 18 in 18 in uh 200 lb magical
12:27subwoofer installed yeah yeah installs
12:29so so you call Scott Walker and you're
12:32like Scott there's no base I need two of
12:34them and he installs the second one and
12:37you're Scott I still have no base I need
12:39three of them and you keep adding you
12:43know what is the the I forgot what the
12:46the ratio is uh 28inch Subs is what the
12:50square of the the membrane area or
12:53something like that I forgot what
12:55something like something like that and
12:56so next thing you know is you have 100
12:58in of of membrane vibrating in your room
13:01and 10,000 watts of power and you still
13:03can't feel the base yeah and but the Bas
13:06is substantially louder now still in the
13:08kitchen I mean now now all the glass ver
13:10is really falling out of the out of the
13:13cabinets yes but still in your Listening
13:15Room it's not because with that sub you
13:18have not addressed the real problem that
13:20is your your brain just had to work
13:23harder now to get all those additional
13:26unproperly correlated noise
13:29out of the yeah what those seps are
13:32producing also to uh to suppress that so
13:36essentially so so basically I then go
13:38back to two comments you made earlier
13:41which is air or or uh wave propagation
13:45is a fundamental of sound pressure and
13:49air velocity yeah it's basically it's
13:51it's an uh an interaction continuous
13:54interaction between uh uh air Vel
13:58velocity where the movement of the air
14:00basically the moov of the air molecules
14:02is the most and where they're more most
14:05compressed basically okay so that's
14:07that's pressure where it's compressed
14:08and where they're moving is velocity and
14:11just like a weather system with uh low
14:14and high pressure areas you will
14:17basically see that it's obviously if you
14:19have pressure difference air is going to
14:21move so between pressure difference in
14:25the sound wave uh you will have high
14:28pressure
14:29and from the high pressure it will flow
14:32away so away from the the high pressure
14:35you get the most velocity MH and since
14:37it's a wave it basically uh compresses
14:40again after the the half a wave uh
14:44lengths so you will see that there is an
14:48uh an a fixed relationship between where
14:51the pressure in the Soundwave and the
14:53Velocity in the Soundwave is and if you
14:58if you do that and if if you use your uh
15:00your big subwoofers outside without the
15:03room old base will be there where you w
15:06to have it outside but normally you w to
15:08have it inside but uh if you put yours
15:11outside they work perfectly well it's
15:12not that the the speaker designer did
15:14something wrong because they did not
15:16they tested it out in an an aoic room or
15:19maybe uh an open field or whatever just
15:21to make sure that the speaker as a
15:23transducer does what it needs to do and
15:25and it will whenever whenever I look at
15:28uh uh frequency responses of speakers
15:31they go down to 30 40 Herz uh easily
15:35yeah I mean nowadays with uh with the
15:37the drivers we have with uh neodymium uh
15:41magnets and everything and and and the
15:44power power basically is uh is cheap
15:47nowadays uh the Watts of your amplifier
15:50are cheap basically so uh having enough
15:52power in the base is always there and it
15:55will go low so it's your your your main
15:57speakers will be uh perfectly uh capable
16:01of delivering the base that you were
16:03looking for but you don't hear it
16:05because your room just destroyed the the
16:08natural propagating wave so is that the
16:12is that
16:13essentially what explains a room node in
16:16in your room the suckout that you yes I
16:20mean the the if if as soon as you get
16:22Reflections in the room basically the
16:25the wave comes back mhm then you go from
16:28from from traveling waves basically to
16:32standing waves MH and standing waves
16:34have a very different property mhm and
16:37for standing waves you can have your
16:39pressure and velocity can be fairly out
16:44of face MH and it's then the the room
16:47node change a little bit and so but that
16:49will work it's a resonance Noe and
16:52there's many resonance notes in in a
16:54room MH but the the relationship because
16:58of that standing wave effect uh between
17:01the pressure and the
17:03velocity that would be associated with
17:06an proper traveling wave that comes to
17:08Earth soon gets lost MH to a lesser or
17:13greater extent I mean if it's a small
17:15extent then base will work well some
17:17rooms it's so bad that that RAC ship is
17:20totally gone and your ear says well this
17:24is Flipper on my ear let's let's cancel
17:27it out so what is the solution or what
17:30what what does your product do that I've
17:34been enjoying so much over the last 10
17:3815 years whenever I first saw it had it
17:41and you installed it for me and and I've
17:44never ever looked at another subwoofer
17:47because I don't have the need to yeah
17:50what what uh what I found out basically
17:52or what the the solution I uh when I
17:55found out okay that this is really
17:56what's happening is the pressure and
17:57velocity
17:59relationship natural relationship gets
18:00lost um then actually the the the
18:05obvious
18:06answer uh kind of presents itself that
18:09is repair that repair that repair that
18:12relationship and should be Sol so what I
18:16did is say okay how do how do I repair
18:19that
18:20relationship um well since you have
18:23velocity and you have
18:25pressure uh if you take one of the two M
18:29you either take start working on
18:31velocity or you're going to start
18:32working on pressure MH uh you can
18:36basically shift them back in the right
18:39relationship the 90 degrees relationship
18:42MH well doing that with velocity is not
18:45easy then you need to have a very large
18:47electrostatic panel or uh uh Magna pler
18:51panel so that does not make sense but it
18:53would work or you use pressure and
18:55pressure you can do with a very small
18:57close envelope uh sub
19:01roofer and based let's say on the the
19:05the
19:06the uh the wavelengths that you're
19:08trying to
19:10correct
19:12the the size of the subwoofer preferably
19:15should be roughly 10 times smaller than
19:19the wavelengths that you want to work
19:20with so that it does not really create
19:23additional velocity okay it only creates
19:26pressure okay and I mean if you would
19:29put it outside the pressure because the
19:32outside it will naturally start
19:34propagating the the the pressure part of
19:36the pressure will be transformed to uh
19:39to Velocity in a natural environment but
19:41again in the room it was already problem
19:43so that's not going to happen either so
19:45we're going to have a small subwoofer MH
19:48and we're going to address purely the
19:51pressure in
19:53the in in the waveform and we're going
19:56to basically shift that
20:00uh back into the right uh
20:04relationship and that's that's Bas the
20:06the the the adjustment that we do in the
20:08room MH and you know I have this these
20:11setup things kind of bouncing
20:17basketballs and you slowly dial that in
20:21and after you've done that you've
20:24correct
20:25that not all rooms do uh let you correct
20:28it all the way down to to very low
20:31frequencies but if you can correct it in
20:34a room down
20:36to 30 HZ you're doing extremely good
20:40because there are virtually no rooms
20:42that can do that anyway MH but even if
20:44you can get it correct to even to 35 or
20:49even 40 H Hertz you will have an uh a
20:52natural base experience that you will
20:54never have
20:55Hur that is very true very true yeah
20:58because people think well I don't have
21:01much base so let's take this enormous uh
21:04subwoofer tower that can go down to
21:07eight Hertz that's not helping MH well
21:10and and fundamentally you can't hear
21:12that anyway you feel it yeah you you
21:15feel that base I don't know what the cut
21:18off is but you know 40 HZ 30 htz you
21:20can't hear that it's it's all in the
21:22sensation the gut the pressure that is
21:26being generated that your body absorbs
21:30yeah and translates it into the
21:32experience of hearing you know 35 HZ
21:35base yeah I mean 40 and 30 htz you can
21:39still hear it okay but at 20 htz the
21:43sensitivity of your hearing becomes
21:45dramatically really bad actually and
21:47below that indeed you need to have uh
21:50very very loud based to actually hear it
21:54and then you you feel it long before you
21:55actually uh hear it in your ears but for
21:5940 Herz 35 Hertz that is still a very
22:03good combination between uh between
22:07hearing it basically and feeling it but
22:10the same thing goes basically for the
22:14uh for feeling the base if the the the
22:19propagating wave is there then you
22:21really start feeling it because it's
22:23it's uh hitting you yeah it's hitting
22:25you if you want to call it like that
22:27yeah interesting so that's that's what
22:30uh the proximity sub roofer basically
22:32does is repairing that relationship that
22:35that's really all it does repairing that
22:37relationship M and if you do that your
22:40hearing your brain no longer has the the
22:44urge to filter to take it out and then
22:47all of a sudden you find out that your
22:48existing speakers have plenty of Bas
22:50that already were specified down to 20
22:53Hertz or so they have plenty of Base
22:55works works perfectly
22:56fine so that's that's everybody in the
23:01old house always asked where's the
23:06subwoofer and how many subwoofers are
23:08you hiding and I would
23:13always I would always tell them there is
23:16no subwoofer I'm not hiding any
23:19subwoofers what you're hearing is what
23:22the speakers are producing as base
23:25output yeah I mean the interest interest
23:28thing uh demo basically is obviously
23:31switching on that little sub uh to hear
23:34what kind of enormous impact difference
23:36it
23:37makes um but then people say okay well
23:40you're adding a sub then even more
23:43interesting uh demo is to uh basically
23:48uh switch off your power ABS so that
23:51only the proximity step is running MH
23:54and then you hear very little base mhm
23:56almost nothing mhm
23:58so the base that you hear when the
24:00system is playing that apparently seems
24:03to appear almost completely when switch
24:04of the subwoofer apparently does not
24:07come from the subwofer by itself because
24:08the subwofer only plays not impressive
24:11at all just a little bit
24:13humbling rumbling in the back basically
24:16MH so that's that's the interesting
24:19thing is that uh you can hear that there
24:21is not a whole lot of energy added it's
24:25just done in a way that it's
24:29puts the the alignment of the the
24:31velocity and pressure back in
24:33time relationship yep is that sort of
24:36like is that the the is that analogous
24:39to time alignment in
24:42speakers um not really the time
24:45alignment in speakers is more let's say
24:49uh there is some some analogy but it's
24:51more that you uh align let's say the
24:54higher frequencies and the lower
24:55frequency so that it's uh it recreates
24:58the same type of w for a plan that it
25:01launches off a one plane rather than
25:04delayed and all that got it got
25:07it there's one
25:09more bonus well there there's one one
25:13more thing I would like to say about the
25:14proximity uh Bol um I'm not producing
25:19the the product at at the at the moment
25:21uh for practical reasons because I need
25:23to dial it in myself and I I've uh
25:27accumulated a lot of miles in my life
25:29and not planning to keep on doing that
25:31so yeah that's kind of why I
25:33discontinued it but there's one uh
25:36one uh
25:38additional effect when you correct the
25:42uh uh the the wave front basically and
25:46the the wave relationship and I did not
25:48see that coming when I was uh designing
25:51it because I was not looking for that M
25:54but if you have uh natural
25:56instruments uh they basically you know
26:00that uh we have harmonics of of so if
26:03you have a guitar for instance and most
26:05most acoustic uh instruments even though
26:08they they have uh if they're smaller
26:10instruments they they don't have any
26:12base at all not not any base at all but
26:14they only have higher frequencies guar
26:17can go as as low as something like uh 55
26:20Hertz as a base but nothing really comes
26:22out there but most of it is higher
26:24violins definitely and other things um
26:27but they consists mostly out of second
26:30harmonic uh harmonic content to give
26:32them their okay their sound and the
26:35interesting thing with uh even harmonics
26:39is if you if you look at old harmonics
26:41and you have the first the third the
26:42fifth and the seventh harmonic and so um
26:46and then the lowest is one of course but
26:48if you have uh even harmonics so you
26:52have the seconds and the fours and the
26:54six and the eight but that automatically
26:57also generates the one under the the
27:00fundamental that's the zero harmonic if
27:02I can say it like that okay and that
27:05zero harmonics is basically uh a
27:07pressure envelope wave so if you have
27:11that the it basically if you if you
27:14toggle the string of an of a guitar it
27:17basically moves the air volume a little
27:19bit and as a human you are actually
27:22sensitive to that because that creates
27:23its own envelope wave mhm and I found
27:26out with the uh
27:28uh proximity sub that it uh restores a
27:32large part of that
27:35uh uh pressure envelope wave and the
27:39result is that and pretty much everybody
27:43picks up on that as as uh when you
27:46switch on the proximity that also all of
27:48a sudden the the space and the feel the
27:52feeling of presence of an instrument get
27:55better even though that instrument
27:56itself does not produce any uh
27:59fundamental frequencies that are even in
28:01the base range interesting and that was
28:04something that if uh it took me a while
28:06to find that out and it's actually you
28:09can measure it uh you can measure it
28:12that that it is the case but I did not
28:15make the the proximity sub controller
28:18for that and I did not expect that to
28:21happen because that's not what I was
28:22looking for I can definitely uh agree
28:27that when you turn the proximity base
28:29controller
28:31off it appears that the entire image
28:37collapses the the the magic of the
28:41experience
28:43disappears uh which is an interesting
28:46side effect yeah it's kind of the the
28:47natural presence in in that that that
28:50seems to to reduce in yeah yeah and
28:54again that was an interesting side
28:55effect that I did not
28:58anticipate but looking into it you can
29:01actually measure that it is the case wow
29:03that pressure envelope is the case
29:23fascinating
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