Subwoofers - Front Firing or Down Firing - Which Sounds Best?

I have one set that is downward firing (a pair of woofers mounted face to face (isobaric on a vertical axis, vented laterally) and one set that is forward firing and find no significant difference between them.  It is more important that you have two of them than which way they point, IMHO.

I like the design of the REL subwoofers. Rythmik would also be another option.

I bought a Rythmik F12G from an A'gon member a few years ago.  He told me something about setting it up that was spot on and relates to the earlier reference to time and sound waves. He told me to add a few feet when it came to any room EQ setup where the distance between the speakers/sub and listening position was  adjustable.  My room EQ automatically adds about 1.75' extra feet to the distance.  I played around with it and eventually landed on adding 8-9' to the distance between the sub and the setup mic.  Actually it's something like 8.3 - 8.7 feet depending on how I have the room arranged furniture-wise.
I have been been able to integrate - for lack of a better word - my single Rythmik sub between my MMGs through this added distance and it truly incorporates itself quite well.  The integration is MUCH tighter after the additional distance, the lower frequencies do a much better job of disappearing and melding into the music, and it makes for a fine two-channel listening experience (to me).  The sub is spec'd to extend to 14 Hz and is highly adjustable.  I set it at a 20 Hz extension (with high damping) for the Bach pipe organ music I occasionally treat my cross-water neighbors to, and it does a fine job of rattling the wall hangings (it that happens to be your bag).
I don't happen to have the room for a swarm in my listening room (that happens to double as my living room) nor do I particularly want one.  I'm quite content with what I ended up with after much research, adjusting and listening.  But you CAN achieve perfectly enjoyable results that sound very, very good with a single sub when faced with certain limitations.

I have a down firing woofer that I can just lay on its side, and experiment with positioning.  I've found that facing it forward helps it blend just a bit better with the mains, but I keep it pointed down for aesthetics.  While I doubt the phase means much at 30Hz, how the driver is facing relative to your mains at 100-200 Hz will change the integration.  Sure, your sub crossover may be set for 80Hz, but that's only its -3dB point.  It still will have some audible output at 150-200Hz.

And don't believe that "Sub is omnidirectional, so you cannot localize where it's coming from".  THAT IS FALSE!   The first part does not begat the second part of that statement.  YES, bass is omni.  It will eminate from the subwoofer in all directions equally.  But that does not mean that you cannot localize it from your listening position.  That's an entirely different thing!  The BEST is to have STEREO subs alongside your main speakers (or 1 sub in the middle).  This will expand your soundstage tremendously.  For me, having a sub off to one side makes me feel uneasy.  I can feel the pressure differential in my ears. 

Well I tried my "mini swarm" today. I brought my 12" Polk sub (HT sub) into my music room, hooked it up and (sound of air coming out of balloon) my B&W sub wouldn't turn on. I was doing some electrical work this week (throwing breakers) and thought I blew a fuse. I opened up the B&W and found a wire looking like it was not connected (to the driver) but inspected the fuse anyway (a LOT easier said than done). Anyway, got everything working and Tool's "46 & 2" never sounded so good. Gobs of bass! Will need to optimize things (ordering another Polk) but looks very promising. Don't have room for the "holy grail" of four subs but think the matching Polk's should keep me happy for awhile. Party on Garth! 

I think you will probably find every sub added brings improvement. My initial plan when building my DBA was to sell my Talon Roc to offset the cost of the four DBA. So when the subs went in the Talon went out of the room. The four were amazing! But then just being curious I decided to try with 5. The Roc went back in. Wasn't expecting too much. The literature after all says going from 4 to 5 should only be a very small improvement. What I heard though, or more accurately what I felt, was not small at all! Most amazing of all was the definite feeling that the bass I was getting with 5 was so much lower than anything I ever felt was coming out of the Talon at any point ever.

I think what happens is any one sub on its own, it does go very low but because of room resonances does so at a much reduced level. Then we get a double-whammy because of the way human hearing works, Fletcher-Munson equal loudness counters rise a lot at low frequencies. In other words really low bass has to be quite loud in order to be heard at all. We simply aren't that sensitive to it. But then the instant it crosses that threshold where we do hear it, wow! Impressive!

So more subs increases the lowest frequencies to where we can really hear them.