Bass sounds good but sometimes "peaks"

I’ve been tweaking a my Filter Curve quite a bit to boost bass so that it sounds good but the issue I’m having is the better the bass in the vocals sound, the more likely it is to “peak” on my physical bass under my desk like every once in a while it hits a point it physically can’t handle. If I lower the dB boost it starts to lose quality in the audio. Is there a certain range I should be lowering or something? I don’t know that much about audio quality and frankly I hate dealing with it because it is always so frustrating to me.



These are my current settings:
NoiseReduction:Use_Preset=“”
Compressor:AttackTime=“0.2” NoiseFloor=“-40” Normalize=“1” Ratio=“2” ReleaseTime=“1” Threshold=“-16” UsePeak=“0”
FilterCurve:f0=“30.832112” f1=“56.051264” f10=“563.77983” f11=“637.9934” f12=“720.43664” f13=“792.1416” f14=“869.12614” f15=“983.53418” f16=“1136.1802” f17=“1382.3173” f18=“3985.6778” f19=“7049.1647” f2=“68.174339” f20=“14786.323” f21=“18358.908” f22=“19529.906” f3=“86.408941” f4=“110.65524” f5=“181.46738” f6=“234.79424” f7=“271.23466” f8=“444.80718” f9=“503.3597” FilterLength=“8191” InterpolateLin=“0” InterpolationMethod=“B-spline” v0=“-30.150375” v1=“-30.150375” v10=“-6.3909798” v11=“-2.7819557” v12=“-0.075187683” v13=“1.7293243” v14=“2.6315804” v15=“2.4812031” v16=“0.9774437” v17=“0.22556305” v18=“0.22556305” v19=“0.22556305” v2=“-0.22556305” v20=“0.22556305” v21=“0.075187683” v22=“-30.150375” v3=“5.1879692” v4=“7.1428566” v5=“7.2932339” v6=“4.5864658” v7=“0.22556305” v8=“0.22556305” v9=“-3.0827065”
Normalize:ApplyGain=“1” PeakLevel=“-1” RemoveDcOffset=“1” StereoIndependent=“0”
Limiter:gain-L=“0” gain-R=“0” hold=“10” makeup=“No” thresh=“-7” type=“HardLimit”
Normalize:ApplyGain=“1” PeakLevel=“-1” RemoveDcOffset=“1” StereoIndependent=“0”
ExportMp3:

Version 2.3.3
file example.png
filter.png

Instead of “HardLimit” of try soft limit, and/or increase the hold time from the default 10ms, to say 20ms.
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/limiter.html

Thanks for the response. I tried applying both and it may have had a marginal effect but not really a noticeable difference.

You might be over-doing the bass boost. It’s not “a lot” especially if you are normalizing or limiting, but a +6dB boost is 4 times the power and the bass is where most of the “power” lives.

The fact that you need to boost the bass may indicate that your speakers are wimpy in the bass, and you usually run into trouble when trying to compensate for that.

And/or there may be some frequencies that are interacting with your woofer and resonating in an bad way. The speakers can have “bad bass” without being wimpy. For example, those “one-note” boomy subwoofers you sometimes hear in cars.

Have you tried the same files on another system or on headphones to see if the speakers are the problem?

It sounds fine on my headphones and phone but my thinking is I have standard (obviously nothing fancy) computer speakers/bass and that is what most people listening on a PC will have as well. If I’m having the issue I assume most others would as well. Is there a particular frequency this is likely to happen or is it just a simple “too much bass” issue?