PSI Audio AVAA C214

ELECTRONIC BASS TRAP

- KALMAN RUBINSON

Ever since I became interested in—nay, obsessed with—high-quality music reproduction, my goal has been to attain the experience of being at a performance. Some audiophiles target the recreation of the event in their room—a “they are here” experience. Yet, it's obvious that the ensembles, orchestras, and choruses I enjoy would not fit in my room, and so it would be foolish to try to reproduce them as if they were.

In the early days of component hi-fi, all was mono. Not until the emergence of stereo was there any hope of creating the auditory illusion of an acoustic space—a performance venue other than the room I was listening in. Reverberation captured in a mono recording can hint at a space, but the spatial capabilities of stereo are much more extensive. Similarly, multichannel (and “immersive”) audio is more effective than stereo at reproducing a performance venue's ambience.

Even so, you can never eliminate the acoustics of the room you're listening in—not completely.

Committed listeners began to pay attention to crucial issues such as speaker placement and acoustics early in the stereo era, yet many continue to find reasons not to do so. Décor and the preferences of nonenthusiasts in the household often stand in the way. A major deterrent is the bulk of most effective treatments, especially those used to tame bass. In the conventional, well-proven approach, the thickness of the material used to absorb sound must be a significant fraction of the wavelength—and the wavelength of a 100Hz soundwave is about 10'.