Do you run a sub in your 2 channel system?

[89grand]

for me its not that it might not make a diffrence. but to get subs that i would consider to intergrat into my mains, would be costly specialy if i were to do it with more then one. going with cheap subs just wouldnt be good for such speaker's, i dont belive i could make a diffrence with the low budget i have right now. i am very happy with the freq range i am hearing, so to me its not worth it for the cost between gain. ive tryd a cheaper sub and ya it didnt work to well, my mains were doing better then the crappy sub lol.

Not knocking higher priced subs at all, in fact they are generally better, but I believe one decent sub is the most important, and then you can add 1-3 more average performing subs and get very good results. Better results than without them for sure.

 

[kb9qkc]

what quality sub though would it take to intergrate with something like my 3.0's they do play very low and clean i dont want to take away from that. with the cheaper subs my 3.0's dont intergrate very well cause the subs just exagerate some of the range of my 3.0's and that was at the lowest hertz cutof of the sub.

 

[Gang-Twanger]

for me its not that it might not make a diffrence. but to get subs that i would consider to intergrat into my mains, would be costly specialy if i were to do it with more then one. going with cheap subs just wouldnt be good for such speaker's, i dont belive i could make a diffrence with the low budget i have right now. i am very happy with the freq range i am hearing, so to me its not worth it for the cost between gain. ive tryd a cheaper sub and ya it didnt work to well, my mains were doing better then the crappy sub lol.

I worry about the same thing happening with my main loudness-makers. I could maybe see using an old 15" alnico Wharfedale woofer (something with the same tonality that can reach lower depths than the dual 12" woofers in each cab), but I don't know which configuration would be best to implement it. A ported box of some sort, I would think, since that's what my W90's have, but I really don't know. I don't have the technical know-how to design/build such a thing. I wouldn't be against trying it though, if I had the money. Doesn't mean I'm not happy with what's happening already though.

 

[spl225]

It seems many base the benefit of subwoofers on how big the woofers are in their speakers, or how good they think their mains are, and it it really makes no difference at all.

I use subs (plural) with every speaker I have, and will do so with any speakers I ever get in the future.

It sounds like some folks have never heard a properly integrated good sub in action. A lot of posts here quote frequency response numbers from spec sheets and tout how big or how many woofers are in their speakers and think a sub wouldn't make any difference. I think what's not understood is any speaker manufacturer can claim response down to 20hz. The problem is it's at a volume level that can't be heard or felt making that spec meaningless.

 

[Vintagear]

It sounds like some folks have never heard a properly integrated good sub in action. A lot of posts here quote frequency response numbers from spec sheets and tout how big or how many woofers are in their speakers and think a sub wouldn't make any difference. I think what's not understood is any speaker manufacturer can claim response down to 20hz. The problem is it's at a volume level that can't be heard or felt making that spec meaningless.

You're probably right. Many speakers would probably benefit from more low end range but I think it's difficult to integrate seamlessly, and even that is very subjective. In my case, I have at least one pair of speakers that doesn't need a sub. Here's what Stereo Review said in an article on the Polk SDA SRS's from 1985:

"One of the most serendipitous aspects of living with the Polk SDA-SRS was the rediscovery of the low bass content of many programs. We seldom encounter speakers with response below the audible range.It is quite an experience! Furthermore, with the SDA-SRS it is not necessary to play the music loud to enjoy the tactile qualities of deep bass.It comes through the floor and the skin even at background-music levels, yet the SDA-SRS has less artificial heaviness in the 100 - 200 Hz range than most smaller speakers."

 

[Mr Natural]

I've tried my SVS with my Double Advents........nothing to see here, move along.

There really isn't anything low enough in frequency on my vinyl collection that the Advents can't handle. The SVS stays in the home theatre system for the big explosions and stuff.

 

[Infinitoid]

No. My internally powered Infinity Overture 3s have enough bass to satisfy me most of the time in their two channel living room role. If the music demands deeper bass than they can legitimately produce I just move the show to the AV room, where a pair of powered Infinity IL60s and a DefTech PF1500 reside. 1000w, 2 12" and a 15". All tuned up with a BFD1124P

 

[iwilson]

can I run a sub off my pre amp out? how low should the frequency response be?

 

[RS Steve]

I use subs only for my surround sound for movies, I like my 2 channel music accurate and uncolored. There are certain types of music that require the boom boom effect but not the types I listen to.

 

[marc mc]

Many have tried to tell you guys for years and years that subs have absolutely NOTHING to do with the main speakers abilities!!!

Marc mc

 

[transmaster]

I just purchased the soundtrack to "Man of Steel" from my Sound Blaster Recon3D sound card it is hopeless on my Polk Monitor 10B's, switching to DLNA and the sound in Pure Audio mode it is a Wagnerian hurricane but I perceive there is more on the extreme bottom end the 10B's are not really able to do. a sub-woofer would be needed to get them. I am looking at the HSU VTF-2 MK4 Subwoofer the speaker has rave reviews everywhere, is not obscenely expensive and has the nice feature of being able to be configures as a sealed system or ported and you can have one or both of the ports open depending on your listening environment.
http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vtf-2mk4.html

 

[transmaster]

Many have tried to tell you guys for years and years that subs have absolutely NOTHING to do with the main speakers abilities!!!

Marc mc

This is a good point I don't ever expect a subwoofer to fix the short comings of your main speakers. My Polk Monitor 10B are good down to about 50Hz. This covers 99% of what I listen to but with church organs, and modern movie soundtrack they get down below what the 10B's can do that is what I want the subwoofer for.

 

[dnewma04]

Wow, I would have thought it would be the other way around (Not disagreeing... Simply saying I never thought of it that way before). Part of the reason (but certainly not the only reason) why I've avoided subs is because of the size of the room. I have pretty-close neighbors, and I don't need their kid getting any crazy ideas about putting one of those in his bedroom.

Hey GT,

It's the acoustics of a small room that nearly necessitate subwoofers. What happens in normal size rooms is the wavelengths exceed the rooms dimensions from about 200hz on down. From 20-200hz, the room is almost completely in charge of frequency response. Measuring a typical room will almost always show 20-30dB swings in the 20-100hz range and usually a little more benign frequency response aberrations but they are still there. We have a local club member who has a room with a big peak at 45hz and a big hole around 90hz. It's not the least beat atypical.

There are a couple of ways to fix these anomalies in the response. One is use acoustic room treatments like bass traps or if you are building from scratch, there are construction technics that can work very well. Most of us don't have the know how, money, or room to build a great sounding room, so we are left with making the best of what we have. FWIW, position of speakers won't do a lot in the bass region where the modal behavior exists. It will shift the locations of the peaks and dips a bit, and may even change the frequencies around slightly, but they will still exist at a similar amplitude. With the typical bass traps that are available to us, we can typically knock down the variation in frequency to 10-15dB from 25-30db. It's pretty effective.

The other way to handle it is actively with a distributed bass system. Basically, the idea is to add multiple sources of low frequency to fight back against the rooms low frequency domination. A way to think of the behavior is like this. If you have a pan full of water and you move it back and forth and observe the wave, it will be at the highest amplitude when it's moving in the one axis. If you start to add a front to back motion with the left to right, you'll see the waves spread out and the amplitude of the waves will drop. Now if you keep adding different waves/directions, you gets lots of tiny waves spread out everywhere, all very low amplitude. This isn't an ideal analogy, but it sort of gets the idea across. Distributed bass spreads out the eigenmodes and reduces the peaks and dips in the process.

Adding subwoofers in this method isn't about adding explosions, making a room boomy, etc. It has exactly the opposite effect, it smooths out the bass response in a room so you get less boom. The multiple drivers also help to reduce distortion since each one has to work less hard.

And yes, even an IRS V or any other speaker capable of very low visceral bass will be dominated by the room and each system can be improved by additional low frequency sources.

Even more fun is that because a distributed bass system kind of loafs along compared to a single subwoofer, you can often spend less on each one and still get superior bass response in a room.

 

[dnewma04]

I use subs only for my surround sound for movies, I like my 2 channel music accurate and uncolored. There are certain types of music that require the boom boom effect but not the types I listen to.

The problem is the room will prevent your 2 channel from being accurate and uncolored below 150-200hz or so. Distributed bass fixes the coloration and inaccuracies that will be present because of your room, regardless of the speakers used.

 

[BankShot]

To each their own when it comes to using or not using a sub in their system. For me, I learned years ago that no matter what mains I was running, I would notice a difference in the overall bass sound in the room when a sub was put in line. Why? Because of I what like to refer to as "BBD" or Better Base Distribution. There are many very fine high end speaker systems with built in bass woofers, The overall sound from them is truly impressive. and there's enough bass to make your liver quiver for sure. But those two main speakers can only be placed in two specific spots in the room in order to also have a good sound stage, also important when listening to music. With the addition of a sub, or in my preferred case, two subs, now we have the ability to move that/those sub/s anywhere in the room so as to even out the bass. Also in many cases to help alleviate standing waves within the room itself. Just because a main speaker can reproduce a 20 hz note doesn't mean that note is going to flow evenly throughout the room. Bottom line for me is that in most cases we do add a sub to go lower, but more often than not it is also done to make those deep bass notes just a tad more full and clean sounding. Now this of course is just my own personal feeling from the experiences I've been thru in all my years of "playing with sound". Yours of course may differ a bit or a lot. Whatever sounds best to YOU in YOUR listening room is all that is really important here..............right? I am open to any rebuttals that may come along after this post...........to all.

 

[dnewma04]

what quality sub though would it take to intergrate with something like my 3.0's they do play very low and clean i dont want to take away from that. with the cheaper subs my 3.0's dont intergrate very well cause the subs just exagerate some of the range of my 3.0's and that was at the lowest hertz cutof of the sub.

It's certainly not inexpensive and some people don't have the luxury to put the additional boxes in their room. It would take almost 1000.00 to get three subs of the quality you'd be looking for, if you only considered new subwoofers. And 500.00 or so for used subs on CL with typical used prices. If you got lucky, even less but unless you were very lucky, it's certainly not going to be a drop in the bucket.

 

[Mystery]

This is a good point I don't ever expect a subwoofer to fix the short comings of your main speakers. My Polk Monitor 10B are good down to about 50Hz. This covers 99% of what I listen to but with church organs, and modern movie soundtrack they get down below what the 10B's can do that is what I want the subwoofer for.

Hehe... all you need is to move up on to the bigger polks. :yes:

 

[89grand]

Hehe... all you need is to move up on to the bigger polks. :yes:

And he'd still benefit from multiple subwoofers.:yes:

 

[marc mc]

Hey GT,

It's the acoustics of a small room that nearly necessitate subwoofers. What happens in normal size rooms is the wavelengths exceed the rooms dimensions from about 200hz on down. From 20-200hz, the room is almost completely in charge of frequency response. Measuring a typical room will almost always show 20-30dB swings in the 20-100hz range and usually a little more benign frequency response aberrations but they are still there. We have a local club member who has a room with a big peak at 45hz and a big hole around 90hz. It's not the least beat atypical.

There are a couple of ways to fix these anomalies in the response. One is use acoustic room treatments like bass traps or if you are building from scratch, there are construction technics that can work very well. Most of us don't have the know how, money, or room to build a great sounding room, so we are left with making the best of what we have. FWIW, position of speakers won't do a lot in the bass region where the modal behavior exists. It will shift the locations of the peaks and dips a bit, and may even change the frequencies around slightly, but they will still exist at a similar amplitude. With the typical bass traps that are available to us, we can typically knock down the variation in frequency to 10-15dB from 25-30db. It's pretty effective.

The other way to handle it is actively with a distributed bass system. Basically, the idea is to add multiple sources of low frequency to fight back against the rooms low frequency domination. A way to think of the behavior is like this. If you have a pan full of water and you move it back and forth and observe the wave, it will be at the highest amplitude when it's moving in the one axis. If you start to add a front to back motion with the left to right, you'll see the waves spread out and the amplitude of the waves will drop. Now if you keep adding different waves/directions, you gets lots of tiny waves spread out everywhere, all very low amplitude. This isn't an ideal analogy, but it sort of gets the idea across. Distributed bass spreads out the eigenmodes and reduces the peaks and dips in the process.

Adding subwoofers in this method isn't about adding explosions, making a room boomy, etc. It has exactly the opposite effect, it smooths out the bass response in a room so you get less boom. The multiple drivers also help to reduce distortion since each one has to work less hard.

And yes, even an IRS V or any other speaker capable of very low visceral bass will be dominated by the room and each system can be improved by additional low frequency sources.

Even more fun is that because a distributed bass system kind of loafs along compared to a single subwoofer, you can often spend less on each one and still get superior bass response in a room.

TRUE!!!

Probably the best post I have read on AK.

When you hear this for the first time its stunning. And the most surprising thing to my ears is the absolute transformation of the mids and highs.

marc mc

 

[dnewma04]

To each their own when it comes to using or not using a sub in their system.

For sure. When I go on my pro distributed bass rants, it's really just about public awareness and making people understand that there are factors at work (the room) that dominate and regardless of how capable speakers may be, they can *always* be improved upon.

For me, I learned years ago that no matter what mains I was running, I would notice a difference in the overall bass sound in the room when a sub was put in line. Why? Because of I what like to refer to as "BBD" or Better Base Distribution. There are many very fine high end speaker systems with built in bass woofers, The overall sound from them is truly impressive. and there's enough bass to make your liver quiver for sure. But those two main speakers can only be placed in two specific spots in the room in order to also have a good sound stage, also important when listening to music. With the addition of a sub, or in my preferred case, two subs, now we have the ability to move that/those sub/s anywhere in the room so as to even out the bass. Also in many cases to help alleviate standing waves within the room itself. Just because a main speaker can reproduce a 20 hz note doesn't mean that note is going to flow evenly throughout the room. Bottom line for me is that in most cases we do add a sub to go lower, but more often than not it is also done to make those deep bass notes just a tad more full and clean sounding. Now this of course is just my own personal feeling from the experiences I've been thru in all my years of "playing with sound". Yours of course may differ a bit or a lot. Whatever sounds best to YOU in YOUR listening room is all that is really important here..............right? I am open to any rebuttals that may come along after this post...........to all.

Sounds like you sort of stumbled into the acoustic issues we all face and found a solution in a similar manner as me. I used to swear by stereo subs, but what I later found out was that I was just hearing the improvements of multiple subs, not necessarily stereo subs. When I started reading and trying distributed bass systems, it all became very clear. I moved the stereo subs away from the already capable mains and rather than getting bass that was less coherent, it became more so, because of the distribution.