The bass is the place...

So, we are left with, at least IMHO, most speakers that really cannot produce accurate and extended bass with any real precision. Your thoughts? Why is the bass the place?
Correct. You have a good handle on the situation. For years and years all we could do was pay up big time trying to get good bass.

Turns out the reason its so expensive is we were taking the wrong approach. Turns out its impossible to achieve genuinely good bass response with only two speakers. Any two speakers. No matter how big. No matter how powerful. No matter how expensive. Cannot be done.

Not with that outdated approach anyway. Change to the method that works however and it becomes trivially easy. Incredibly easy. Affordably easy.

The solution is to not hardly even consider bass response with the stereo pair. Mid-bass on up is all that matters. Sure if they put out good deep bass that is always a plus. But its a very low priority. Because that’s not how its done.

The solution for bass as everyone now knows is called a Distributed Bass Array or DBA or what Audiokinesis calls a Swarm. A system of four or more subs distributed asymmetrically around the room.

With a DBA suddenly truly deep, powerful, smooth, and articulate bass is super easy to achieve. The subs don’t have to be that big or powerful because there’s so many. Placement is easier and more forgiving. And the cost is reasonable, roughly $3k for true state of the art bass.

The biggest obstacle is that while the physics and acoustics behind DBA is compelling hardly anyone has heard one. So everyone assumes more subs is just more of what they know. Its not. Its so much different its a whole new ball game. Its so much better you would not believe.

Read the reviews. There’s people with every kind of speaker including even ESLs and we all find DBA integrates seamlessly creating a wonderfully integrated enveloping sound field that actually somehow even improves clarity and palpability in the upper registers.

As to why the stereo pair cannot do it, its physics. As to the solution, you now have it. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McN2AygDMtQ&t=1128s

Simple physics.  Ever tried to fit six double-bass players into your living room, along with everything else that's already there?  By analogy, speaker designers are trying to do the same thing with speakers.

Because :  Room.

The lower speakers go, the more monsters they wake.

As frequency decreases the work that must be done to maintain flat response increases exponentially. Bigger rooms magnify the task even more. It’s basic physics.

In many cases it is the amp that is not up to the task of driving the speakers properly especially in the bass where it must work much harder, without clipping ie distortion. That’s why powered subs and affordable and very compact and efficient high power Class D amps are both the bees knees these days, especially as more people have space and budget considerations and demand smaller more manageable products including speakers.