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I was curious about the average spectral power distribution for various types of music, so I hooked the headphone output of my tablet (playing Spotify 320kbs MP3) up to the line input of my laptop and used REW's RTA at 1/48 octave 32k samples with averaging set to Forever. Then I went through some playlists of various genres, playing a few second of music at about 10 roughly equally spaced places through each song. I moved through the playlist until I had accumulated about 800 spectra that were averaged, so probably 15 to 25 pieces of music per genre. With that many spectra averaged, the average spectrum had come close to steady state and wasn't changing much.
All the spectra were taken at the same volume setting. They are displayed with 1/6 octave smoothing to make them more legible.
I did check that everything was working properly by looking at Sheffield Labs Uncorrelated Pink Noise 20Hz to 20kHz and it is flat.
Things to note:
1) The Dance Mix is my own playlist, with pop and EDM that I like, and it is the only one of the pop music styles that isn't compressed right up to the limit in the 500 to 5000 Hz range. That's probably why I like those songs (on average).
2) There are slight differences in the amount of bass. Country peaks at 60 Hz before falling. 50 Hz has maximum power across many genres, and only hip hop seems to have significant energy at 30 Hz. Orchestra doesn't have much bass on average, but it is deep (flat down to 20Hz), probably from low frequency, impulsive bass drum hits.
3) There are huge differences in the amount of compression/crest factor/headroom between pop, jazz, and orchestral.
4) Piano doesn't have much high frequency content.
5) It seems that MP3 may have a maximum high frequency content between 10kHz and 20kHz, or everybody is using the same drum and cymbal synth, because all the high frequency pop music has the same limit and slope up high.
Anyway, it seemed like it might be a useful exercise for thinking about how much power handling is required for various driver and crossover combinations. It is also useful to decide how much bass extension you need for the type of music you listen to.
All the spectra were taken at the same volume setting. They are displayed with 1/6 octave smoothing to make them more legible.
I did check that everything was working properly by looking at Sheffield Labs Uncorrelated Pink Noise 20Hz to 20kHz and it is flat.
Things to note:
1) The Dance Mix is my own playlist, with pop and EDM that I like, and it is the only one of the pop music styles that isn't compressed right up to the limit in the 500 to 5000 Hz range. That's probably why I like those songs (on average).
2) There are slight differences in the amount of bass. Country peaks at 60 Hz before falling. 50 Hz has maximum power across many genres, and only hip hop seems to have significant energy at 30 Hz. Orchestra doesn't have much bass on average, but it is deep (flat down to 20Hz), probably from low frequency, impulsive bass drum hits.
3) There are huge differences in the amount of compression/crest factor/headroom between pop, jazz, and orchestral.
4) Piano doesn't have much high frequency content.
5) It seems that MP3 may have a maximum high frequency content between 10kHz and 20kHz, or everybody is using the same drum and cymbal synth, because all the high frequency pop music has the same limit and slope up high.
Anyway, it seemed like it might be a useful exercise for thinking about how much power handling is required for various driver and crossover combinations. It is also useful to decide how much bass extension you need for the type of music you listen to.
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