Woof, Squawk, Tweet

musichal

poet emeritus
Funny how we went with animal sounds, though that isn't what this thread is about, nor about drivers. It's about the frequencies of terms we use almost every day... well, squawk went out of favor and we say midrange now...
but where does one end and the other begin?

I tend to think of bass as lowest notes up to just above 200hz, midrange from there to about 3 or 4 kHz, and treble everything beyond. Of course we often qualify with terms like upper and lower, and I've heard people mention the presence region which I think is part of the midrange band, and brilliance which is up in the treble somewhere.

So when we speak to one another, are we always talking about the same frequencies? Where do you think bass, mid, and high frequencies live? Do you have a particular region in mind for presence and brilliance? What other frequency-band nomenclature did I overlook? Are there any agreed-upon standards for these terms?

I just began to wonder about how effectively we communicate with, and understand one another on a very basic level, while reading another current thread.
 
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I'm pretty much in agreement overall.

In my case,I have usually (although perhaps wrongly!) given the bass range a bit more extension,say 400 to 500,as the highest fundamental on a standard-tuned 4-string bass goes to just below 400.But that's just personal bias,haha!

I have always (again,perhaps wrongly!) considered the ''presence'' range to be around 2K,brilliance around 8K,best I can figure.
 
So when we speak to one another, are we always talking about the same frequencies

I've often thought we aren't even speaking the same language when we're talking about more concrete terms:D:dunno:
(Not you and I Hal :hug:)

Seriously,
That sounds about right .
I never tried to quantity the frequencies (that is, what defined which term) . If you look at some tone control specs, the manufacturers didn't necessarily agree on the exact frequencies.

Autocorrect made the word tone, time.
That certainly would've made being an audio aficionado more interesting :cool:
 
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I've often thought we aren't even speaking the same language when we're talking about more concrete terms:D:dunno:
(Not you and I Hal :hug:)

Seriously,
That sounds about right .
I never tried to quantity the frequencies (that is, what defined which term) . If you look at some tone control specs, the manufacturers didn't necessarily agree on the exact frequencies.

Autocorrect made the word tone, time.
That certainly would've made being an audio aficionado more interesting :cool:

Well, I already procured time control specs from Zaphod Beeblebrox. Have been working on Improbability Drive in the garage, with the only success so far being I consecutively flipped heads 7,812 times before a breaker tripped. That, and my wife has a heart of gold.
 
I pretty much agree with the frequency groups as you have them laid out. I too have often wondered why we use animal terms to describe the drivers, is it a universal thing or are they called something else in other languages?

Regarding other frequency nomenclature I once had a nice upper end Magnavox console that had a Timbre control. It did absolutely nothing when turned either way as far as I could tell, I thought maybe it was supposed to be a midrange control but I dunno. :dunno: You did have to pull it out to turn on the console if you weren't using the record changer, that's about all it did.
 
I pretty much agree with the frequency groups as you have them laid out. I too have often wondered why we use animal terms to describe the drivers, is it a universal thing or are they called something else in other languages?

Regarding other frequency nomenclature I once had a nice upper end Magnavox console that had a Timbre control. It did absolutely nothing when turned either way as far as I could tell, I thought maybe it was supposed to be a midrange control but I dunno. :dunno: You did have to pull it out to turn on the console if you weren't using the record changer, that's about all it did.

Timbre is not associated with a specific frequency, but it does have to do with frequencies, and resonances that produce them. For instance you can play the same note on a piano and on a guitar, but they sound different due to overtones and undertones of the fundamental note unique to each instrument, occurring at octaves, and other tones produced by the instrument. That's a simplification but I think it's somewhere near the vicinity of timbre, as I understand it. Also the same note played on a cedar-top guitar will sound different from a spruce-top of the same size and type due to the timbre of each instrument being different because of the materials from which they are constructed. That's my limited understanding of timbre in a nutshell.

I don't know what that control did exactly, but it probably did something with octaves of part of the signal in order to unintentionally screw up timbre. Probably was a good thing that it was difficult to detect. :D
 
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I don't give a poop what frequencies are where. All I am concerned with is how does it sound. The rest of that stuff belongs to the engineers.
 
I use this chart as a reference... http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm
but still I'm sometimes surprised by where certain tones fall. For example cymbals, most people think they are high but the fundamentals can be much lower.

Awesome chart. Looking at the overlap of instruments across frequency bands and you can see why three way speaker designs are more challenging. Crossover frequency and roll off considerations in two critical places.
 
I don't give a poop what frequencies are where. All I am concerned with is how does it sound. The rest of that stuff belongs to the engineers.

Very constructive,and bears no relevance whatsoever to the OP's thread.Nice contribution,you should be proud:)
 
I don't give a poop what frequencies are where. All I am concerned with is how does it sound. The rest of that stuff belongs to the engineers.

Very constructive,and bears no relevance whatsoever to the OP's thread.Nice contribution,you should be proud:)

I didn't mind the comment; fair enough was my first thought. However, I do disagree with it belonging to the engineers. I care about sound, too; we all do or we wouldn't be on the site. And sure, you can care about the experience without delving into the science and technology. I just think it handy to have some idea of the sound of various frequencies - helps in troubleshooting, and in communicating with others. I played with a frequency generator before there were test tones available for free downloading online, and found the experience useful. We all do and enjoy things our own way, and KingBubba has his I've noticed before. I suspect a little tongue-and-cheek there.

Glad to see the smiley face, letting us know you were just raggin' on him a little, as friends do, arts.

Oh, and I agree with bobins08; nice chart, goodolpg.
 
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Geez, I was only having a little fun. I guess I should have added a smiley or something. Musichal, you caught it right. I was teasing about the engineer thing too. It is true that I go by sound alone and why, if I needed speaker advise, I would have to ask all you engineer guys on here, at least to me you are engineers because you all are way out of my league. I prefer the sounds of all my DCM speakers, but I have no idea how DCM made them sound so good. Now onward with a great thread. :) o_O
 
I like the term squawker, it got dropped as it had negative connotations and 'midrange' sounded more HiFi and refined.

It's either bass, midrange and treble units or woofer, squawker and tweeters IMO.

I say, bring back the squawker! :)
 
I like the term squawker, it got dropped as it had negative connotations and 'midrange' sounded more HiFi and refined.

It's either bass, midrange and treble units or woofer, squawker and tweeters IMO.

I say, bring back the squawker! :)

Can you imagine fifty, I mean, fifty people a day walking into their local audio emporium, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant Massacre, and walking out? It would be a movement...
 
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