Are big subwoofers viable for 2 channel music?

Duke,

Your above easy to follow, in concise in layman like terms of DBA are very welcome, needed and surprisingly understandable. Some months ago I took millercarbon’s advice and read:

Optimal Bass Palyback In Small Rooms By Earl Geddes
Why multiple subwoofers in sound reproduction?
GedLee.com - GedLee LLC Papers by Earl Geddes

And ever since then I came to understand to NOT

’judge bass by it’s level despite the fact that some bass levels are not at all natural or neutral’.

In Earl Geddes ’Why Multiple Subs?’ papers - when I read:

1) If there are corners, then one sub should probably go in a corner. Corners have the unique characteristic of see all of the modes. But using two corners is not an effective use of two subs because the symmetrical situation makes these two sources less statistically independent. A less symmetrical location for the second sub would be better. 2) One of the subs should be relatively close to the mains, but not too close. Ideal here might be to locate the first sub close to the mains, but back in a corner, if in fact the mains are pulled out slightly from the wall behind them, as they should be. 3) The rest of the subs locations become far less important if the first two points above are adhered to.

Subwoofer requirements:

Because we are using 3 (or more) subwoofers, they do not need to be as powerful as a single subwoofer. Any decent active subwoofer (ported or closed design) with a 10" or bigger driver will do. It should have controls for.is

• level (continuously variable)
• low pass frequency (continuously variable)
• phase (switchable or continuously variable)
• parametric equalizer (optional)

It was if the subwoofer lesser deities themselves opened up to me and I tried the technique with only 2 subs at first. One in the left corner of the room closest to the mains and I moved the sub that was in the far right corner and place it asymmetrical out of the right corner and against the far right wall and noticed an improvement right away. Of course there’s more but I won’t’ go on.

Duke,
I’m just trying to let you know that because of your Swarm Subwoofer System I understand exactly what you have shown above NOW in a step by step manner to do the same thing in my own home and I say thank you.

It is extremely hard to convince some of us hard core bass heads that a very high level of gain, volume, headroom and ’mega bass’ are not needed for ’good bass’. But now I know.

There’s just one caveat, My subs do not have phase (switchable or continuously variable). My PSA subs have 2 pots for:

Time Delay from 0ms to 16ms and
Room Size from small to large

Theses PSA pots were made to be adjusted by ear.
How do and where should the adjustment be made with the 2 above pots
with the multiple sub (4 or more) equation?

@luisma31,

Outstanding room and rig indeed! I too have PSA and SVS subs that may be going up for sale. 

Duke,
I have been to the Swarm website this weekend but did not see the Azel's? Could you give me a link to the Azel's and any other of your products I may have missed please. Thanks!

smodtactical,

I and others here did not intend to hijack your OP. Thank you for being so patient with us as this kind of bass stuff is very revelatory.

Tyray wrote:  "Duke, I have been to the Swarm website this weekend but did not see the Azel's? Could you give me a link to the Azel's and any other of your products I may have missed please. Thanks!" 

My website is being revised, but Jim Romeyn's site has all of my current designs.  Jim is my partner in crime... for example the Space Generators that Luis mentioned were his invention: 

https://jamesromeyn.com/ 

Duke

Hi Tim:
Thank you for the kind words, I'm trying to learn and as you stated Duke and Jim are a good source of unbiased data, they of course are in the business but they provide good advise even if sometimes goes against the actual product they are selling, this is something you don't find today commonly. If you learn how to filter BS here in Audiogon most of the time you can learn a few things too, there is a lot of people (like you which I follow your comments) that have knowledge and try to share such as well.
Yeah we have kind of the same settings, if our rooms were bigger (I guess yours is medium size room  like mine) maybe we will go higher on the gain settings to fill it but the "bass perception" I get is just perfect. I say perfection because I tried and can't barely hear anything below 40 Hz.
I thought on using the GIK but I have other priorities to improve my system which I think will be more relevant than a subtle change on room treatment.
In addition to this Duke's speakers take advantage of late reflections to improve the mid/high perception so room treatment, flat response filters etc. will kind of flatten / remove this and I just don't want that.
This is OT of course but among all the music I like is classical and instrumental violins, piano, cello etc. and even opera.
When I travel I love to go (especially in Europe) to live venues which are very inexpensive, one of my favorite venues are church concerts, usually these are $10 - $20 per seat typically (even in Paris, Prague etc which some concerts are even free) and you can do even two events the same day, you perceive the music coming directly from the instruments and also these churches high tall vaulted ceilings and walls provide all sort of reflections. If one could go into the venue with a microphone and a FR software and computer I'm pretty sure the FR curve will be all over the place, not flat at all, does that prevent us from enjoying live music? not at all and that brings me to the topic of perfect flat response, is it really that critical? I don't want to spoil this thread with anything else but the close to perfect FR of the bass using the Swarm by wave overlapping it is just brilliant, too bad physics won't allow for the same with all the other frequencies.