Choosing Sub-woofers. Please advise ASAP.

Tim, I won't be bringing in any subs once I get the Quatro's in the house and set up.  What you also should keep in mind is that any of the powered Vandersteen's are set up for the best upper bass to treble response and soundstage.  Yes, that's right on their site I believe.  That said, dialing in the built in bass units using the EQ on each will give you probably 99% (always subjective) of what you would get by adding two more 2W subs and dialing them all in.  The dealer is doing the set up for me as most do.  They will use their lasers and tape measures, but they also have a special Vandertones disk they use to set them up for the bass.  It's really easy to dial in your bass this way.  All speakers are designed with omissions and have to be due to limitations set at price ranges or just due to materials available.  That said, I've never heard of a current or former Vandersteen owner from Quatro up complain about the bass.  I have a lot of friend who have standing wave problems, etc... get them in their room and be very very satisfied.  

Again, would adding two more be better?  Only if they match the speaker and are of the same design as the ones already in the room (in Vandersteen's case, using their 2W or better yet, his newest sub).  

Hi ctsooner,

     " That said, dialing in the built in bass units using the EQ on each will give you probably 99% (always subjective) of what you would get by adding two more 2W subs and dialing them all in.  The dealer is doing the set up for me as most do.  They will use their lasers and tape measures, but they also have a special Vandertones disk they use to set them up for the bass.  It's really easy to dial in your bass this way."

      For your sake, I hope you're right.  I do think the dealer should be able to optimize the Quatros' bass performance or optimize the Quatro's mid-range, treble and sound staging performance at a single listening position that you specify in your room. The difficult part will be doing both without compromising the performance of either. The lasers, tape measures, Vandertone disk and sub equalizers may help in this effort but the unavoidable laws of acoustical physics cannot be avoided even by the most skilled Vandersteen dealer.following the manufacturer's best setup procedures and using the most advanced tools in existence.

     My main point is simply that optimizing mid-range, treble and sound staging performance while also optimizing bass performance at a single listening position is not a simple process in any room.  This is especially true when the bass, mid-range and treble drivers for the system cannot be independently positioned in the room.  

     It is well known that bass sound waves propagate much differently in any given room, no matter its size or shape, than mid-range and treble sound waves propagate in the same room.  This is not a matter of opinion or debate.  It has been empirically proven time and again by independent acoustical experts utilizing controlled environments and following scientific methods.  

     These acoustical facts, unfortunately, equally apply in all rooms, including yours and mine.
     As long as the drivers launching bass, mid-range and treble sound waves into a room are positioned in the same speaker cabinet, the capability to optimize the reproduction of the entire frequency range in any room utilizing only 2 of these cabinets/speakers will be highly unlikely.  

     My opinion, based on personal experience and acoustical science, is not meant to disparage the Vandersteen Quatros..  I'm almost certain they'll be able to be positioned in your room to reproduce excellent mid-range and treble performance and an excellent sound stage at your listening position.  However, I'm fairly certain that your bass response at this listening position will not be optimized until 2 high quality subs, that can be independently positioned in your room, are added to your system.

     I believe a better design for the Quatros would entail 2 smaller towers containing the mid-range and treble drivers along with 4 small separate cabinets each containing one of their powered subs.  

     The Vandersteen dealer would first position the 4 independent subs in your room to optimize bass response in your entire room. The equalizers in each of these subs could be eliminated to save costs since I don't believe they would be needed in the resulting distributed bass array system.  
     The final step would be to position the 2 smaller towers to optimize mid-range, treble  and sound stage performance at your preferred listening position. 

     Assuming I think correctly that Vandersteen is unlikely to heed my design advice,I believe the next best option is to add 2 small but high quality subs instead.
  
   I wish you the best,
        Tim  

What you completly fail to understand is that 99% of anyone, will not be able to use 2 other cabinets in their room, especially since they too have to be placed in specific positions based on your theory.  It's not realistic. I"m happy that you have the ability to do it, but I'll take my Quatro's which sound better to me than anything under 30k.  The bass is outstanding.  

The other problem you may agree with, but gloss over is quality.  Bass is by far the most expensive part of the equation and just because someone can afford two extra subs (if they have built in subs which most in the US don't), doesn't mean they can afford outstanding quality subs in order to get better bass. If inferior subs are used, then the bass will suffer much more than just using dual subs that are built in.  That's too is reality.  Doesn't matter how many boxes you use to smooth things out, if it's not top quality, it will sound like garbage. 

I've never heard any aftermarket sub sound great with a Vandersteen than his own. That said it would still be an extra 5k I guess to get two more (that I can't fit into my room for many reasons).  At that point, I'd much rather put that towards better source as I already have 99% of the great bass that my active speaker offers.  

You can make as many posts as you want telling us how great 4 subs will sound and I agreed with you with the caveat that I post again in this thread.  I'm thrilled that you love a specific set of subs. That's honestly awesome and what we all love this hobby.  You can talk about what great quality the swarm subs are, but I'm highly skeptical that they would be up to the quality of most of the subs folks are talking about in this thread as cost is a factor, especially when building bass as it's just hard to do properly and very expensive.  

ctsooner,

 " What you completely fail to understand is that 99% of anyone, will not be able to use 2 other cabinets in their room, especially since they too have to be placed in specific positions based on your theory."

       I'm beginning to feel like we both just completed our first lap in our ongoing discussion on Choosing a Subwoofer and we're heading back into turn #1 to run lap #1 all over again.  

      I don't know about you, but I'd rather not rehash points we already made in previous posts on this thread.

     I think we've both  already made our viewpoints on choosing a subwoofer clear.  

     I'm going to excuse myself from this thread by making a few additional points and summarizing my thoughts on this subject for posterity:

DBAs using a minimum of four subs have been scientifically proven to work incredibly well in providing excellent bass response in virtually any room of any size or shape.

Complete DBA systems, such as the Audio Kinesis Swarm and Debra systems, offer very good bass response at a relatively affordable price of about $3K.

Custom DBA systems can be created by anyone using four even higher quality subs that they prefer.  However, these may be considerably more expensive with possibly only marginal improvements.

If state of the art (SOA) bass response is sought, a DBA using at least 4 subs is required.

Those numerous Audiogon members and others that believe achieving great bass response is just a matter of finding the right brand or model sub and using 1 or 2 in their system will continue to be disappointed in the results not because their chosen sub is not good enough but because they used too few of them. 

Any bass systems not utilizing at least 4 subs will be a compromise according to acoustical experts and my personal experience. Systems using 3 or fewer subs may perform sufficiently well to satisfy their owners at a single designated listening position but allow too many bass standing waves to exist in their rooms to qualify as a SOA bass system.

Properly setup DBAs result in consistently very good bass response throughout the entire room, not just a designated sweet spot.  This makes it an ideal solution for HT use with multiple seating.

ctsooner has claimed that 99% of people will not be able to accommodate 4 subs in their rooms.  99% smells suspiciously to me like a POOMA number; a number ctsooner would likely admit under oath that "I pulled out of my ass". 

Anyone unable or unwilling to accommodate 4 subs in their rooms will, unfortunately, have to settle for less intrusive solutions that will have lower quality bass performance.

Those who are serious about attaining SOA bass performance in their rooms will find a way to accommodate the 4 required subs. 


 The distributed bass array (DBA) method was initially a theory proposed by 2 acoustical physics PHDs, Dr.  Geddes and Dr. O'Toole.   These 2 experts subsequently conducted scientific experiments that validated their theory and published a White Paper detailing the theory, testing method,  results and conclusions.  The gist of their primary conclusion was that bass standing waves, in a wide variety of room sizes and shapes tested, continue to be reduced as more bass source points (subs) are added.  They state that the majority of bass standing waves were reduced at the point that 4 subs were operating, with additional subs only having marginal affect.  

     As their results were consistently duplicated by other acoustic experts via independent scientific testing, the use of DBA systems to provide excellent bass performance in virtually any room transformed from a theory into a  proven and universally accepted solution among acoustic experts.

     I stated the above facts to make it clear that the DBA method is not 'my theory' but a theory proposed and proven valid by a couple of PHD acoustical engineers.

     Okay, I believe that summarizes my current thoughts on subwoofers and bass systems.  

    I wrote this likely final post on this thread with the intent to share with current and future thread readers what I've learned and the solution I ultimately discovered on my long journey to achieve excellent bass response in my system in my room.

    I hope this viewpoint will benefit others on a similar search.

Thanks,
   Tim   

Hi Tim you know you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink . All i can say my system for the last 3 years was a DSP controlled stereo sub set up I thought I had good bass at least in my one listening spot . Now after hooking up two more REL subs I have great bass all over the room . The rule is three is mandatory and adding the fourth is the end game any more and its a waste .