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Help me understand "the swarm" in the broader audiophile world

I'm still fairly new out here and am curious about this Swarm thing. I've never owned a subwoofer but I find reading about them--placement, room treatments, nodes, the crawl, etc--fascinating. I'm interested in the concept of the Swarm and the DEBRA systems, and I have a very specific question. The few times I've been in high-end, audiophile stores and asked about the concept of the Swarm, I've tended to get some eye-rolling. They're selling single or paired subwoofers that individually often cost more and sometimes much more than a quartet of inexpensive, modest subs. The same thing can be said for many speaker companies that make both speakers and subs; it's not like I see Vandersteen embracing the use of four Sub 3's. 

My question is this: do in fact high-end stores embrace the concept of multiple, inexpensive subs? If not, cynicism aside, why not? Or why doesn't Vandersteen or JL or REL and so on design their own swarm? For those out here who love multiple subs, is it a niche thing? Is it a certain kind of sound that is appealing to certain ears? The true believers proselytize with such zeal that I find it intriguing and even convincing, and yet it's obviously a minority of listeners who do it, even those who have dedicated listening rooms. (I'm talking about the concept of four+ subs, mixed and matched, etc. I know plenty of folks who embrace two subs. And I may be wrong about all my assumptions here--really.)

Now, one favor, respectfully: I understand the concept and don't need to be convinced of why it's great. That's all over literally every post on this forum that mentions the word "sub." I'm really interested in why, as far as I can tell, stores and speaker companies (and maybe most audiophile review sites?) mostly don't go for it--and why, for that matter, many audiophiles don't either (putting aside the obvious reason of room limits). Other than room limitations, why would anyone buy a single JL or REL or Vandy sub when you could spend less and get ... the swarm? 


northman
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,311 posts
 
Yup, the more subs the merrier. I have 1 system with 0 (not needed speakers are essentially full range and no significant bass issues in the room) and one system with one sub. Ho ho ho!

Why not 10? Get on it DBA pioneers!
erik_squires
16,144 posts
 
Dear Audiogon,

If you need to bring me over to your side, please serve me a heaping hot plate of condescending flattery drizzled with projection.

Best,
E
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,311 posts
 
is it safe to say we all hate to walk into a hifi store and have the salesman tell us what we should buy or do without even listening to what our needs are and acting accordingly? The ones who do listen and act accordingly are the good ones.

Maybe we can all strive to be more that way here as well. Help others figure out what is best for them not for us.


mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,102 posts
 
People debate without end about electronic piece of gear, 1 or 4 or zero, without almost never informing themselves first about the embeddings...

No piece of gear can rival embeddings controls done rightfully....Even and especially in bass section.... For sure if you buy a 100,000 dollars system with 4 subs this will beat my 450 dollars system without one and even with one done right.... I will not argue against that even before listening to it....

There is exception to any law....

My law is dont upgrade anything, embed everything before doing that....

:)


This is a very important observation indeed:
Help others figure out what is best for them not for us.



Then dont give any money to upgrade before trying to embed your audio system...

 Necessary upgrading to reach audiophile experience is an half truth only , then, worst than a lie....

I apologize because the topic is the "swarm" not my rant about embedding but......

My best to all....
audiokinesis
2,743 posts
 
Veerossi wrote:  " My setup is different from the standard DEBRA though: I’m still unclear how to setup the phasing on the sub amps since my DEBRA uses 2 Qty of the SA1000 subs amps instead of one to drive the 4 subs. It’s supposed to have some benefit for phasing. "  

Here is what I suggest:  

Drive the two subs on the left-hand-ish side of the room with one amp, and the two on the right-hand-ish side of the room with the other.  Set the phase controls on the two amps roughly 90 degrees apart from one another.   You may have to go back and fine-tune the low-pass frequency and level controls a bit.  

The idea is to synthesize the phase difference at your left and right ears that you might have in a much larger room.  This reduces the "small room signature" of the playback room, thus unmasking the acoustic signature of the recording venue, whether it be real or engineered or both.  So you hear less of your playback room and more of the recording.  

Mitch2 wrote:  " Your comment made me think of two reasons I have not tried a DBA yet, and something Duke (or somebody) could work on to help those of us who already own and use two great sounding subs..."  

Imo you can add subs to the one or two you already have.  They needn't be as large and capable.  I do suggest that any subs positioned away from the main speakers, and closer to you than the main speakers, have their top-ends rolled off fairly steeply (24 dB per octave is what I use) no higher than 80 Hz.  This is so that they don't pass upper bass/lower midrange energy loud enough to give away their locations.  

Lalitk wrote: " IMHO, it has to [do] with practicality which millercarbon and DBA advocates continue to overlook each time a sub discussion pops up."  

I can't speak for my fellow DBA advocates, but it normally doesn't occur to me include practicality disclaimers.  

For anyone in a situation where a distributed multi-sub system is impractical, obviously something else would be a better choice.  Maybe something like this: 

" one sub is better than no sub and two subs is better than one sub. "  

(Actually imo one sub may not always be better than no sub - many dipole owners have tried one sub and gone back to no sub.) 

Duke
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