"Apparent bass" and nonlinear distortion

A discrepancy between the "apparent bass" response heard by the average music listener and anechoic-chamber measurements has been noted for some small loudspeaker systems. This may be caused by the psychoacoustic response to the generation of harmonic distortion by the nonlinear suspension and the inhomogeneous flux gap density in a small speaker. An electrical analog, with controllable distortion, of such a speaker has been subjected to listener tests and evaluation to determine if this is the cause of the apparent bass effect. An analysis of the listener reactions to various music stimuli through the system indicates that this is the case.