Low-pitched musical arts[edit]

LFEs include both low-pitched musical notes and low-pitched sound effects. The
musical soundtrack for many films includes bass instruments that produce very low
notes. Until the 1970s, most of the low-pitched instruments were natural, acoustic
instruments, such as the double bass or the pipe organ's pedal keyboard. After the
1980s, film scores increasingly used synthesized instruments, including synth
bass keyboards, which incorporated very low-pitched notes.

Sound effects[edit]
The most challenging sounds to reproduce from a sound engineering standpoint are
usually the extremely low-pitched sound effects in the 20 Hz range, such as those used
to simulate the sound of an explosion, earthquake, a rocket launch, or submarine depth
charges.[5] The human ear is not very sensitive to sounds at these low frequencies, so it
takes a tremendous amount of amplification for the human ear to hear them. Further,
sounds at these frequencies are more felt in the body, rather than heard. As well, since
they are sound effects, they may have a longer duration or sustain than many low-
pitched musical notes, which makes them harder to reproduce accurately.[citation needed]

It is a formidable challenge for an amplifier, subwoofer speakers, and cabinet to

reproduce these sound effects at a high volume without encountering problems such as
power amplifier clipping (distortion), unwanted rattle or resonance in the wooden
cabinet, or excessive "chuffing" sounds from the bass reflex vent (if a vent or port is
used in the cabinet). Sound recording magazines sometimes use the loud, rumbling
sound effects simulating the sound of the submarine depth charges which were used in
the World War II film U-571 (2000) to test the accuracy of subwoofer systems.[5]

Development[edit]
The LFE channel originated in Dolby Stereo 70 mm Six Track film prints, as a way of
providing louder bass and sub-bass effects, without detracting from the quality of the
standard audio channels. The LFE channel is conventionally played back 10 dB louder
than the main channels, giving significantly more recording headroom. Also, the
separate recording allowed a straightforward installation of extra dedicated subwoofers,
and removed the need to upgrade the main speakers.

Later formats such as Dolby Digital retained the LFE channel, although this is more
through convention and backwards compatibility than necessity, as digital formats have
greater dynamic range than the magnetic analogue recordings on 70 mm prints, and
modern sound processors have a bass management system to redirect bass from all
channels to a subwoofer.