Listeners perceive bass improvements primarily through reduced spectral bumps, not faster decay

Evidence

Antsalo et al. (2003) compared the audibility of simplistic 1/3-octave smoothed room curve equalization to that equalization combined with modal equalization that addressed specific room modes with higher precision. The waterfall diagrams show that the synthetic modes were usefully addressed by the modal equalization, reducing both the initial amplitudes and the decay times of the ringing. In simulations over headphones, listeners compared the original room with the room curve smoothed by the magnitude equalization, and a combination of that curve and modal equalization achieved by two different methods. The result was that listeners reported little or no improvement over the simple smoothed magnitude equalization, which alone could only reduce the spectral prominence of the resonances, without addressing the decay rate. The inference is that listeners responded to the reduction of the “bump” rather than the reduction of the decay rate, and did so even with 1/3-octave equalization. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1648

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Directly relevant to the previous technical excerpt on equalization vs. mode cancellation — confirms listeners judge amplitude bumps more than time-domain decay.

Related

• Listeners respond to resonance spectral prominence, not decay rate reduction (similarity 0.91)
• Equalizing only the low-Q resonance substantially improves subjective loudspeaker ratings. (similarity 0.83)
• Equalization and mode cancellation both reduce bass resonance ringing despite different mechanisms (similarity 0.82)
• The listening room, not the loudspeaker, determines perceived bass quality. (similarity 0.81)
• Room reverberant fields typically rise in bass, necessitating bandwidth-matched equalizer cuts for distant miking (similarity 0.81)
• Modal decay times below 80 Hz are achievable with parametric equalization (similarity 0.81)
• Equalizing for a flat in-room response requires adding a high-frequency boost. (similarity 0.81)
• Small bass-level changes strongly alter perceived spectral balance (similarity 0.81)
• Room resonance excess masks loudspeaker bass deficiency to listeners (similarity 0.80)
• Perceptual adaptation to timbre dulls equalizer effects and drives endless compensatory boosts. (similarity 0.80)
• Room acoustics dominate perceived bass response below roughly 250 Hz (similarity 0.80)
• Listeners cannot hear modal ringing below about 100 Hz once amplitude is equalized (similarity 0.80)
• Room reflectivity at low frequencies determines bass elevation in measured steady-state curves (similarity 0.80)
• Listeners prefer excessive, even colored bass over deficient bass (similarity 0.80)
• Room modes being minimum-phase means fixing the spectral bump also fixes the ringing (similarity 0.80)