Just curiosity, wich one is the most dangerous sample, with special low frequency tones, for a subwoofer you have ever listened to?
But specially music based ones...

Pete Namlook - Air 2 - Travelling Without Moving part 9 (465 kB) 25 Hz
Lustmord - The Place Where the Black Stars Hang - Dog Star Descends (275 kB) 14 Hz

Dangerous pop music tracks :

Front 242 - Tyranny >For you< - Soul Manager
Talvin Singh - OK - Butterfly

I couldn't listen to them at a decent level on my old Castle Trent speakers. My Dynaudio Gemini are immune to this kind of problems (2 woofers each), but looking at how the woofers move, this last one would have killed the old Castle Trent if I would have played it :

Delerium - Semantic Spaces - Metamorphosis

What did you think of them ?

That first track is wonderful, because on most "Hi-Fi" systems you wouldn't even know that there was a bass line! The second one's very dark.

I can't believe that the sound is going to damage you or your speakers though.

I'd have thought that undial was more the ticket for that!

Cheers,
David.

I have just installed the "in_tone" plugin which came with Winamp 1.6 and was wondering if a 4 Hz tone might damage my speakers. I can see the bass speakers moving very slowly.

Here is the plugin just in case you need it: in_tone

If you want to generate a 10 Hz tone for example, type in "tone://10" while telling winamp to open an URL (CTRL+L).

Sorry, I had to remove the link due to problems with the server.

Wow! Those are great! Playing the Lustmord sample over my PC sound system resulted in a small stack of CDs sitting on the corner of my desk to go flying onto the floor. Both it and Namlook are great LF samples. I was surprised how clean and deep they sounded(/felt) on my equipment, and how high I could turn up the volume...my courage ran out before my hardware did. I'm sure I was getting roll-off at some point, but I was still able to feel more than I heard. A testament to Echo Indigo and Klipsch.

I'm trying these samples over the Xin-amplified Grados next. Haven't gotten the in_tone plug-in yet...

Darude - Tear Apart also LF sample. Does your equipment could produce clean bass 'till the end off the sweeping bass?

Heh, I love that BassNamlook.mpc; it made one of my bottle openers fall from its perch.

I gotta get the whole track sometime

Ough! it seems my speakers doesn't like playing below 30hz!!!
I thought my JPW MINIUM would be able to do something better...
Maybe when I'm rich

OK, I am having some problems now... I have used in_tone to play some LF tones and everytime I want to turn up/down the volume, the loudspeakers are cracking. This didn't happen before. Anyway, they still work good.
Any idea what happened?

Why no one mentioned Foobar2000 Tone generator?
Included in standard input array.

tone://10,10 (10s 10Hz tone )

What do you mean exactly ?
While playing a low frequency tone, it is normal that volume settins cracks, because they introduce uneven gain at a faster scale than the signal oscillation itself. Therefore analog volume settings will kkrrshsh, and digital volume settings will cliclicliclcic (one click per digital step).

Example : here's a +1 dB gain applied suddenly to a low frequency tone :



You can have the volume setting to crack by itself in silence. It happens to old analog buttons. There are some products to spray into the electronic piece behind the button in order to cure this (ask an electronic components shop). You can attenuate this problem for a while turning the volume up and down several times without music before each use, until the noise disappears.

It is also possible that the speaker is broken : you'll get clicking sounds in it when you play low frequencies. It is volume dependant : it doesn't occur at low levels, since the speaker doesn't move enough. To check this, remove the front panel of the speakers and gently tap the woofer with your finger (don't try it on tweeters, they are too fragile). If there's something clicking inside, it is broken.
I recall that we are discussing the most dangerous samples for speakers here. You can easily break a woofer playing them loud.
Turn down the volume as soon as your hear the slightest distiortion in bass !

OK, thanks... The speakers are OK. The volume cracks only if I play a LF sample, so I think your first point was right. Thanks for the help.

Back in the "ole" days of selling stereo, there was this demo record we used . . . The 1812 Overture, I think . . . that had this actuall recording of a cannon going off. On a good system, it was phenomenal. You could actually feel the impact on your chest!

In modern days . . . there's a nice deep bass synthesizer riff on No Doubt's Rock Steady CD . . . the song called "Making Out". It only lasts a half second, but cool.

Is it the synthesized "frequency rolldown" sound at timemark 3:22?

As for some good LF samples in my own collection, I can recommend:

-1- Under The Influence ~ The Chemical Brothers ~ Surrender. Timemark 0:14 to 0:22, and then the rolling bass thereafter. This is my current favorite, which I like mostly because of the intense "falling" effect occurring at the indicated timemark (as well as a few other times in the track). If the volume's up, I have to hang onto something! Watch out for risk of over-excursion about halfway "down". I've knocked things over across the room with this one.

-2- Apple Juice Kissing ~ Deee-Lite ~ The Very Best Of Deee-Lite. The entire bass line is great, but my favorite part is the low notes between timemarks 1:14 to 1:22.

-3- The Revolution ~ BT ~ Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Soundtrack). Listen for the intermediate bass drop-note that is prevalent throughout, the first occurring at timemark 0:55.

-4- Da Hoola ~ Télépopmusik ~ Genetic World. The bass line has a great drop-note throughout (can't check timemarks right now, as I'm re-encoding my collection and I'm only up to the "Q's").

I haven't measured the exact lowest frequencies of these tracks, but for a basic LF test they should qualify fairly well.