What is PERFBASS?
The PerfBass System is a one-of-a-kind patent-pending Acoustic Design System that is introduced into an empty room. It comprises 4 components – the Outer shell, Absorptive Cortex Stage II , Absorptive Cortex Stage I and Room Re-naturalization System
The images of the 4 components of the System are shown below. These images are for illustration purposes only, and not to scale.
The Outer Shell (your room)
Patent Pending
PerfBass Absorptive Cortex Stage II
Patent Pending
PerfBass Absorptive Cortex Stage I
Patent Pending
PerfBass Room Re-naturalization System
From outermost to innermost, the four components are:
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the Outer Shell (your room),
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The Absorptive Cortex Stage II,
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The Absorptive Cortex Stage I, and
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The Room Re-naturalization System.
The Outer Shell represents the empty room into which the PerfBass System is introduced.
The PerfBass Absorptive Cortexes contribute to the unique Full Spectrum Absorption that delivers a Quasi-Anechoic Environment in Small Rooms.
The PerfBass Room Re-naturalization System is a matrix of more than 200 reflective slabs that re-energize the environment with reflections that psycho-acoustically mimic the natural experience of listening in a closed room.
Patent Pending
for illustration purposes only, not to scale.
The PerfBass Acoustic Design System
The PerfBass system is a first-generation Acoustic Design System that does not necessarily require optimal room-ratios to achieve its unprecedented results and acoustic environment. While preferred room-ratios do have their advantages in attaining specific acoustic goals, the PerfBass System can be implemented in rooms of sub-optimal room-ratios, such as square rooms, and yes, even cubes. The modal nature of even cubic rooms can be heavily suppressed by the PerfBass System.
The combined advantages of the PerfBass System being sub-optimal-room-ratio friendly and ideal for small and irregular cuboid rooms, now allows for high precision critical listening and control room environments to be implemented with much lesser real-estate requirements.
The PerfBass Acoustic Design System also heavily suppresses Speaker Boundary Interference Response. Other acoustic problems like flutter echoes and comb-filtering are also resolved by the Full Spectrum Absorption brought about by the patent-pending PerfBass Absorptive Cortexes.
The PerfBass Acoustic Design System comes in two models - the PerfBass Core System, and our flagship PerfBass Advanced System.
The significant difference between the two is in the patent-pending PerfBass Room Re-naturalization System, where the matrix of more than 200 reflective slabs is modified in tonality, directivity and the nature of reflection (diffusive/scattering) for specific acoustic goals and enhancements.
Be it the PerfBass Core System or the PerfBass Advanced System, both offer one singular space which is well suited for songwriting, critical listening, recording, arranging, production, mixing and mastering, all rolled into one, as well as an Audiophile and Home Theater room.
The profound, intricate, and precise listening environment created by the PerfBass System is ideally suited for competitive gaming and music therapy as well.
As the PerfBass system does not require flush-mounting and suppresses SBIR, multiple reference monitors can be utilized, with flexibility in speaker positioning while preserving the speaker’s frequency response.
A sizable sweet spot of listening is created, with some deviation in response only in the fundamental length and width mode in general.
The crystal-clear clarity and soundstage offered by the PerfBass System allows for surgical gain-staging through the recording and mix-mastering process.
The PerfBass System offers an environment where an exquisite listening experience can be revelled in at lower listening levels, with less fatigue and safer long-term auditory health.
High end gear is not necessary with pristine PerfBass acoustics, as is evidenced by the entry-level soundcards (one of which was introduced 20 years ago) employed in our demos. A useful setting to gauge the profound listening environment created by the PerfBass System.
The PerfBass System by virtue of its novel design, requires significantly less absorptive material than conventional designs that utilize thick absorption with even Flush-Mounted Monitors employed.
The PerfBass System’s design philosophy, the Adaptable Infinite Environment, is centred around two acoustic goals.
1. Create an environment where the speakers reproduce sound with the least coloration by the room’s acoustic anomalies,
2. Create an environment which mimics the habitat that feel natural to the listener.
The first acoustic goal is accomplished by the PerfBass Absorptive Cortexes.
The heavy suppression of low frequency modal behaviour, and the effective absorption of mid and high frequencies both comprise the PerfBass Full Spectrum Absorption brought about by the Absorptive Cortexes. A Quasi-Anechoic environment is created within the room. This brings about a generous sweet spot of listening which offers appreciable consistency of frequency response, although with some deviation in the fundamental modal behaviour.
The Full Spectrum Absorption delivered by the Two Stages of the PerfBass Absorptive Cortex allow for virtually any small room (we categorize a small room as below 70 cu.m in volume), to be rendered Quasi-Anechoic in behavior - even an irregularly shaped room with unusual boundaries.
(Disclaimer - as the interpretation of an irregularly shaped room with unusual boundaries is subjective, we have provided hereunder an illustration of a room's layout as an example of our interpretation of such a room, along with a measurement image of the Quasi-Anechoic environment created by the PerfBass Absorptive Cortices in that room).
The unique and highly desirable feature of the PerfBass Acoustic Design System’s Quasi–Anechoic Environment is how much volume of absorptive material it requires, and the nature of the “deadness” experienced within the room. The Volume of Absorptive Material utilized in the Absorptive Cortexes is significantly lesser than conventional designs that involve massive thickness of absorption needed to create such modal suppression. Even the floor-space lost to acoustic treatment within the room is significantly lesser in comparison to these conventional designs.
Thus, the novel PerfBass design achieves the unprecedented and valuable trifecta of
1. requiring lesser real estate for critical listening without the need for optimal room-ratios,
2. using significantly lesser volume of absorptive material, and
3. allowing comparatively more habitable floor area within the room compared to conventional acoustic treatment.
As an extension of this, as significantly less acoustic material is utilized, the listening experience of the PerfBass Quasi-Anechoic Environment feels more natural and significantly less “dead” than conventional methods of acoustic design.
While the PerfBass Acoustic Design System’s Absorptive Cortexes deliver a desirable Full Spectrum Absorption without the unnatural feeling of “deadness”, the unsung hero is still to emerge here - it is the PerfBass Room Re-naturalization System.
The Room Re-naturalization System is a matrix of more than 200 reflective surfaces on the 6 boundaries of the room. The sizing of each slab is operatively configured to optimize the re-naturalization process in symbiosis with the PerfBass Absorptive Cortexes. The PerfBass Room Re-naturalization System re-energizes the environment with reflections that mimic the natural experience of listening in a closed room. As we have evolved to listening in closed rooms, this Room Re-naturalization System effectively represents the “remnants of the room” that provide reflective cues to assist the process of localizing sound and music , but without most acoustic anomalies that closed resonant rooms harbor.
Thus, in conjunction with the Absorptive Cortexes, the Room Re-naturalization System delivers a listening environment that feels natural, and is free of the acoustic problems that cloud a pristine listening experience.
More about the Room Re-naturalization System:
The reflective matrix occupies less than 19% of the surface area of the entire boundary of the inner room.
Hereunder is an illustration to explain this better.
In this example above (numbers chosen to simplify the calculation), let us consider that the inner room’s face of the Absoptive Cortex Stage 1 (BLUE) is of dimensions 10 ft width and 10 ft height (width = x , height = y). Hence the surface area of this inner room’s face is x*y = 100 sq. ft.
The Room Re-naturalization System’s is a matrix of 216 reflective slabs across 6 boundaries, and hence there are 36 slabs (BEIGE) on this inner room’s boundary seen here (216/6 boundaries = 36).
This configuration of reflective slabs, by design, occupies less than 19% of the surface area of the inner room face's boundary. That is in this example, 19% of 100 sq. ft = 19 sq. ft. Thus all the 36 reflective plates slabs constitute around 19 sq. ft on this boundary.
Further, when some of these reflective slabs are modified with diffusive elements like QRDs or PRDs, enhanced spaciousness can be experienced. For appreciable diffusion to be experienced, only 8 slabs (marked in GREEN) need be modified with diffusers. That is less than 15% of the total surface area of the 36 reflective slabs (BEIGE). And in extension, that's about 3% of the entire surface area of the boundary wall (BLUE). So, in the PerfBass Acoustic Design System, appreciable diffusion can be experienced with less than 3% of the entire surface area of a boundary wall (backwall) being modified with diffusers . When all the reflective slabs are modified with an intricately designed matrix of diffusive elements, a novel and unparalleled listening environment is achieved.
The same illustration is repeated below for a more scroll-friendly reading experience
The speakers seem to disappear in the PerfBass System. Sound appears to be coming from the walls. More clearly so in the Advanced System (Reflective slabs modified with diffusion) where a stereo width of 180 degrees, and vertical height and depth -– (roughly 40 degrees) can be perceived, although this can be subjective. For example, the vertical height can be perceived when two guitar layers (say panned L and R) play the same chord progression, but as arpeggios of differing inversions - or one descending and the other ascending. These two guitars playing the same chord progression, but with differing frequential content (say arpeggios of chord inversions, one descending and the other ascending), will appear to be moving in different directions vertically- one downward and the other upward on their respective panned sides.
Novel features of the PerfBass Acoustic Design System:
1. The first-generation Acoustic Design System that does not require optimal room-ratios and delivers heavy modal suppression in rooms of non-optimal dimensions, even square rooms, and the acoustically dreaded cube.
2. The premier acoustic design system that heavily suppresses SBIR for free-standing monitors with flexibility in positioning.
3. A system that delivers high precision acoustic environments in small rooms with irregularities in symmetry, creating a new category of critical listening environments that require less real estate. (room results provided for a 46.6 cu.m room and a 63.5 cu. m room. The 46.6 cu. m room was irregular in shape with oddities, image shown above)
4. Diffusion can be experienced with as little as 3% of a boundary wall’s surface area being modified by diffusers.
Advantages of the PerfBass System:
The PerfBass System delivers an unprecedented acoustic response. It delivers massive modal attenuation in small rooms with free-standing monitors, including small rooms with sub-optimal room ratios like squares or cubes.
The ill effects of SBIR (Speaker Boundary Interference Response) that accompany free-standing monitors are effectively suppressed.
High precision multi-utility environments are created by the PerfBass System.
Compared to conventional designs, the PerfBass System requires much lesser real estate for a critical listening environment that delivers an immersive audio experience like no other. The PerfBass System also takes up lesser floor area of the room occupied by the acoustic treatment.
The PerfBass System provides for Speaker-Position-Flexibility that allows for multiple speaker positions to be explored in the room. Thus additional reference monitors can be effectively utilized for more surgical mix decisions. The measured response of 3 speaker positions, at the same listening position (microphone position), in a 46.6 m3 room is shown below (we have included results of two different speaker systems, one with an 8-inch Sub, the other a 12-inch Sub).
The PerfBass Acoustic Design System utilizes significantly less acoustic material required for creating similar results with the acoustically less challenging flush mounted monitors.
The PerfBass Room Re-naturalization System can be customized with different types of reflective/diffusive/scattering elements to achieve specific goals. An environment that feels natural and offers pristine speaker response is created. A large sweet spot of listening area is achieved.
Consistency of the same speaker's response between two rooms (63.5 cu.m and 46.6 cu.m) is shown below:
Room 1 - 63.5 cu. m
The PerfBass System facilitates lower monitoring levels (listening volume), promoting less ear-fatigue and safer long term auditory health.
Authentic low end, that is practically uncoloured by the room, is experienced in the PerfBass System.
In the PerfBass environment, larger full range speaker systems (nearfield/midfield depending on the room size) can be employed as well for fuller spectrum listening without worry of small room modal concerns.
The PerfBass System requires much lesser square footage of area to be modified with diffusive elements for diffusion to be experienced (Diffusion can be experienced with as little as 3% of the entire boundary wall being modified by diffusive elements). The maximum surface area of coverage required by diffusive elements in accordance with the PerfBass design is only 19% percent of the boundary wall).
For the music professional in the ever-evolving and increasingly-competitive Music Industry, the patent-pending PerfBass system is a future-proof investment that puts an end to more investments . Professional musicians, mix-mastering engineers and producers will gain an immediate improvement in quality, workflow and time saved that the need for further investment into outboard gear will become minimal and optional. The PerfBass system has the potential to lower the break-even threshold/ return-on-investment point of any music professional and promote the potential of music as a viable career/source of income. And for the passionate Audiophile and the uncompromising Home Theatre enthusiast, the PerfBass System is a treat to the senses, and an ode to sound.
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The images used herein are the saved images from “Room EQ Wizard” software, an open source tool. The images are only used for education, testing and training purposes and are used in a way by the user within the bounds of the software “Room EQ Wizard”. The user does not intend to claim or own the copyrights on the images produced using the said software.