First I just play the bass for my own satisfaction
I dont care about cutting threw the mix. In my bass journey of buying lots of stuff to get this sound as to what a bass is suppose to sound like. I have come to conclusion room size matters also some type of acoustic treatment helps. I have a ampeg 410 classic svt in a bassment room kind of L ish shaped 18 ft long and 12ft wide at widest with low sealings. I have bass traps and rolled up moving blankets hand made 4in acoustic panels. But to me it only sounds right with 2 windows open and front door open. I play loud enuff just to get a nice feel. Which is not that loud just enuff so it sounds very right to me. Do to life situations I am making a life change to a camper or box truck. I have become interested in Boom BBC bass cabinets somewhere like a 20 square inch foot print. With down firing 15 inch speaker to disperse sound nice and different arrangements of front firing speakers. I have never tried one or heard one. But for some reason a rumble 40 in guitar center sounds great but I not impressed with my rumble 100 at home. So threw my experience buy equipment room size plays a big effect on the bass sound you make. Or that I wish to make. I would just like to hear others thoughts on this subject. I am going to become a roaming nomad. Playing the bass is a staple in my life but big cabinets are ridiculous at this point. Still want big fat vibrating sound for my satisfaction
Acoustic treatments is probably more important than volume. It’s like adding salt to bring out sweetness.
When I built my shed I opted to go with three panel ceiling to reduce bass trap. My ears can only take so much. As long as I get a good sound wave flowing throwing my body I’m good and happy.
I’m not entirely sure what this means, but I like it.
Cheap and easy…
- move where you practice around the room.
- move your amp around the room.
- try some combos of both
I moved my entire room around so my desk sat in a spot where my saxes sound best, then, had to point the other way (right vs. left) when playing - made the world of difference.
On bass, I don’t have traps, and my walls are littered with album covers in frames.
Not ideal, but I accept the downgrade in sound for the way it all looks.
I might be tripping. In my journey I have found that room size matters as well as cabinets. My rumble 100 does not make low bass as well as the Ampeg 410 also i notice that the 410 sounds alot better with 2 windows open and the ft door open I am assuming because bass waves are long and need space to do what they do.
Would not a small room trying to reproduce a 40 hz note wave kind off baffle itself in a sense.
So I am trying to find something that can sound big in a small place in a smaller size than a svt.
Thats why I brought up the BBC bass cabs.
I might be tripping but these are my perceptions.
So your neighbors agree? 
I do think you are correct though about small rooms.
It’s not directly about the size of the room but the acoustics. In this case it’s likely that due to the size (and I bet lots of right angles in the room, walls being close, etc) you’re getting all sorts of weird resonances and reflected sound waves. If the distance is right these sound waves can even reflect back out of phase and cancel out the sound coming out of the speaker, creating a dead spot in the room for some frequencies. There’s a few things to try:
- try moving around the room yourself. It’s really likely you’ll find spots where the bass is stronger (and sometimes, too strong).
- try moving the amp/cab
- cover the walls with some kind of acoustic treatment
I’m not surprised that opening the window helps. Windows are these big flat panes of highly reflective material. Maybe the worst thing you can do for audio.
The acoustics in my current practice area are terrible, so I sympathize. I sit right in front of a big sheet of glass
Opening doors and windows also allow some sound to leak out and can actually help.
For my long narrow room, when I play sax the open door beings in some better sound, but also some angry family members upstairs. Lol.
And I’ve moved my practice position to allow for better sax sounds at the detriment of bass, it’s all a bunch of trade offs.
Don’t know if it had been said already, but it smaller spaces I would avoid bigger speakers. Those things need to move air seriously, which means that it won’t work well in a small volume room. A 10" would be the way to go in my opinion, in this context.
Opening windows can help regarding to the big flat surfaces, but also it helps the air to flow, and avoid it to be stuck and compressed in a small volume. It’s like the room itself behaves like an open or closed back cabinet, somewhat 
(and you are inside the said cabinet)
Still, the best way to go in my opinion is a good preamp (hardware or software) and good quality studio monitors. Big sound at every volume, even in small rooms.
Yeah, agree. My dual 5” monitors sound great even in my crappy space.
Dual 8" here … but my place is certainly much bigger. Still, 6" would probably be enough.
(Obviously when I was talking about 10", it was about an amp and not monitors)