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Any sub recommendation that give bass without harming the baby?

post #1 of 20
11/15/07 at 8:02am
Thread Starter 
I used to do diy sub and finally give up as it doesn't look good along with my TVs and speakers. I have a 3 yr old and a 6month old and my wife would not let me have any boomy bass. With just the main speakers (Axiom M60), it's missing a lot of bass when listening to music. Is there any recommendation that can go lower for music. I don't even want to feel to shaking in movie explosion scenes. Is there any sub that can fit that?

Would a small seal sub like dayton 12" do its job? Would the H100 hurt the ears? I just want to hear bass and not feel it.
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post #2 of 20
11/15/07 at 8:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by wsxedc View Post

I used to do diy sub and finally give up as it doesn't look good along with my TVs and speakers. I have a 3 yr old and a 6month old and my wife would not let me have any boomy bass. With just the main speakers (Axiom M60), it's missing a lot of bass when listening to music. Is there any recommendation that can go lower for music. I don't even want to feel to shaking in movie explosion scenes. Is there any sub that can fit that?

Would a small seal sub like dayton 12" do its job? Would the H100 hurt the ears? I just want to hear bass and not feel it.

All you have to do is lower the gain on any sub and you can get it to where it is only audible but not tactile. If you are keeping the whole system volume low, then the sub output will be low. It is more likely that the upper frequency ranges may have ill affects on your children than the low frequencies. Young children do not have the LF sensitivity that mature people have. Conversely, mature people start to lose their HF sensitivity.
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post #3 of 20
11/15/07 at 8:39am
Thread Starter 
Hmm, I might be getting Rocket X-sub as it's very cheap and it's very musical.
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post #4 of 20
11/15/07 at 9:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ransac View Post

Young children do not have the LF sensitivity that mature people have.

Ah! So that explains all those teen-wantabe ganstas and their car audio.
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post #5 of 20
11/15/07 at 9:09am
Get a good sub and simply keep the volume down. Meanwhile the quality is there for when the kids are out of the house and you want to go crazy and turn it up.
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post #6 of 20
11/15/07 at 9:25am
thats funny, my 4 year old loves bass (i have an epik conquest
which is taller than he is. )

I also have a 2 1/2 month old baby and although i don't turn it very loud when he's home, he doesnt seem to mind it..
I think what you have is boomy bass which gives headaches. If you have your sub properly calibrated it should reduce the boomyness a bit. Go out and buy a radioshack digital spl meter and then download REW software and see what your frequency response looks like. I bet you've got some huge peeks in the 40-80hz region that make it sound real loud. I remember being in a circuit city demo room and they had this little velodyne that sounded boomy as hell when it was on.. It was pretty dang loud for the size but sounded like crap. They just needed to turn the gain down a lot and maybe change its location in the room and it probably would have sounded better (but maybe not as impressive to the bassheads who don't mind a boomy sound).

You might check out the epik valor or another sealed sub as it should have a fairly even response. You could go with something like martin logan if you don't care to have as much output but want good sound (you might want the output though for when the kids aren't home! remember, you can always turn the bass down or off with the switch of a button assuming you have a decent avr or preamp).
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post #7 of 20
11/15/07 at 12:20pm
Thread Starter 
I don't think the young ones care, it's the wife who cares.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mwolfe38 View Post

thats funny, my 4 year old loves bass (i have an epik conquest
which is taller than he is. )

I also have a 2 1/2 month old baby and although i don't turn it very loud when he's home, he doesnt seem to mind it..
I think what you have is boomy bass which gives headaches. If you have your sub properly calibrated it should reduce the boomyness a bit. Go out and buy a radioshack digital spl meter and then download REW software and see what your frequency response looks like. I bet you've got some huge peeks in the 40-80hz region that make it sound real loud. I remember being in a circuit city demo room and they had this little velodyne that sounded boomy as hell when it was on.. It was pretty dang loud for the size but sounded like crap. They just needed to turn the gain down a lot and maybe change its location in the room and it probably would have sounded better (but maybe not as impressive to the bassheads who don't mind a boomy sound).

You might check out the epik valor or another sealed sub as it should have a fairly even response. You could go with something like martin logan if you don't care to have as much output but want good sound (you might want the output though for when the kids aren't home! remember, you can always turn the bass down or off with the switch of a button assuming you have a decent avr or preamp).
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post #8 of 20
11/15/07 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wsxedc View Post

I don't think the young ones care, it's the wife who cares.

Shouldn't the thread title be "Any sub recommendation that give bass without pissing off the wife?"

Seriously, I have a new 6-week old baby in the house. My wife has the same fears and I am trying to reassure that low frequencies shouldn't be an issue for the baby.
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post #9 of 20
11/15/07 at 12:59pm
Regarding the low frequencies, it wouldn't necessarily be the ears you'd worry about. I'm not proposing they do, but what if low frequencies affect organ developement at the cellular level? There is probably some research out there regarding this.

I'd be more worried about high frequencies affecting the ears. There's probably some research availble out there regarding this, too.
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post #10 of 20
11/16/07 at 5:58am
I find it hard to believe that sound can do much damage other than to ears. On a recent myth busters they disproved all sorts of sound myths. The one thing they did say is that tremendous amount of bass can make you feel sick, and I tend to agree with that.

I would get a good sub and then use the gain to keep it within your confort zone. A crappy sub may cause more problems then solve
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post #11 of 20
11/17/07 at 10:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ssuing8825 View Post

I find it hard to believe that sound can do much damage other than to ears. On a recent myth busters they disproved all sorts of sound myths. The one thing they did say is that tremendous amount of bass can make you feel sick, and I tend to agree with that.

I would get a good sub and then use the gain to keep it within your confort zone. A crappy sub may cause more problems then solve


Definitely - it makes my wife sick. However, it's not 'bass' that causes it, it's the SPL's that do it. A good sub is felt, not heard. It's felt because it changes the pressure of the room (like when you're on a plane). The 'soundwaves' will not hurt a baby - or you. The pressure will, but its not permanent. No more than a plane is.

My wife hates my sub. She doesn't mind it when watching movies, but is always saying "turn it down" (like you guys haven't heard that one ).

But no harm will come to a little one from a subwoofer. If you watch your movies at insane levels when your children are in the room - that will. But it's not the sub that will hurt them, it's the higher frequencies of your mains that will.
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post #12 of 20
11/17/07 at 11:49am
Yeah it's the SPL that does the damage,nobody should listen to sustained sound levels higher than 90dB.
And if you're worried about the "brown note" Mythbusters busted that myth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
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post #13 of 20
11/17/07 at 4:31pm
My 2 year old daughter has lived with an SVS sub since she was 6 months old, whether it was the PB10 or the 22-31Pci. I have to say that her hearing today is darn near too good. She can hear me drop F bombs even when I say them under my breath. :-)

Seriously, I have never awaken her, and her room is right above my HT, and I watch movies pretty darn loud.

Have you calibrated your sub to your mains with an SPL meter? If you have done that, even if you have some room modes that would cause peaks, the bass shouldn't be so boomy as to disturb the kids.

You're wife just needs to take a chill pill.:-)
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post #14 of 20
11/17/07 at 4:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sivadselim View Post

Regarding the low frequencies, it wouldn't necessarily be the ears you'd worry about. I'm not proposing they do, but what if low frequencies affect organ developement at the cellular level? There is probably some research out there regarding this.

I doubt there is any effect at the cellular level from loud bass frequencies. Ultra sonics possibly, (there *is* some research being done on that, and some of those effects are actually beneficial), but not bass and infra-sonics.

Craig
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post #15 of 20
11/17/07 at 7:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wsxedc View Post

I used to do diy sub and finally give up as it doesn't look good along with my TVs and speakers. I have a 3 yr old and a 6month old and my wife would not let me have any boomy bass. With just the main speakers (Axiom M60), it's missing a lot of bass when listening to music. Is there any recommendation that can go lower for music. I don't even want to feel to shaking in movie explosion scenes. Is there any sub that can fit that?

Would a small seal sub like dayton 12" do its job? Would the H100 hurt the ears? I just want to hear bass and not feel it.

I'd just make sure to get a quality sub, whether it's a small X-sub or something along the Hsu or SVS line, and get a SPL meter. It makes a huge deal if it's calibrated properly- I recently told my wife sorry about the loud bass during Transformers, and she said what bass? (It was loud for us- I had it at ref -14dB, normally ref -20dB) I've had a PB10 since my little 1-year old was born, and now have a SB12+ too, with no real concern as long as I'm moderate with volumes.

The only issue with music that I've had was that we went to a lot of swing dances while my wife was pregnant. Now, the baby loves swing music!?!
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post #16 of 20
11/22/07 at 8:40am
There will be no damage done to your childs hearing by subwoofers. The frequencies are too low. Hearing loss comes from the higher frequencies at loud volumes. You could lose some tones from very loud low bass, but it would never really perceptibly change a persons hearing. Have your ears ever rung from your subwoofer? The higher frequencies are what cause the cilia to vibrate much faster and this is what causes them to detach. Inner ear cilia detachment is how you lose tones and with enough repeated exposure eventually sound. Whe you listen to sounds that are loud enough to make your ears ring, that is when you do damage. The ringing is the cilia vibrating out of control and falling off.
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post #17 of 20
12/31/07 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rockemsockem View Post

My 2 year old daughter has lived with an SVS sub since she was 6 months old, whether it was the PB10 or the 22-31Pci. I have to say that her hearing today is darn near too good. She can hear me drop F bombs even when I say them under my breath. :-)


you're throwing F bombs at your little girl?!?

J/K Lol

For the OP...I concur that the lower frequencies shouldn't hurt development...however that being said...i would think that any sound at an unreasonable level (*read: most movie theaters, concerts, sporting events*) are probably not good for a developing baby. So, just keep the volume to a reasonable level
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post #18 of 20
12/31/07 at 1:33pm
Please think of the children!
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post #19 of 20
12/31/07 at 4:14pm
Your wife is sensitive with having two young ones and a husband to care for. Don't apply any science or logic to the situation just do what she says.
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post #20 of 20
12/31/07 at 6:08pm
My first inclination is to question those who say low frequencies won't hurt the child, I want to ask what data is there? I, however, don't want to come off wrong or be misunderstood. I am just curious myself. I have sinus problems from time to time, and very low frequencies in my small room, can be felt and have -on occaision- made me sick to my stomach and/or effected my inner ear.

The military has researched using low frequencies as a weapon, it would be interesting to read their findings. Since we haven't heard much about the results, it may be they weren't worth the price, it doesn't mean it wasn't effective.

In any event, err on the side of caution with the kids, when in doubt, don't do it.

I like the suggestion of waiting till they are out of the house, then have at the volume control !!
Happy New Year.
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