Top notch speakers with their own sub

Spatine writes:
>Discussion on sub equalization and placement going on today is precisely the reason I hesitate straying from the mainstream speaker establishment. Now I have more plausible theory as to why major speaker manufacturers don't want to package non-integrated subs with their main speakers for music listening just yet. The technology is not sufficiently developed.

The technology is _fine_. Existing implementations are audibly, measurably, and theoretically superior in real rooms. "audiophile" exposure to cheap one-note sub-woofers and poor integration have created marketing prejudice against separate woofer enclosures. Spousal acceptance of additional boxes is an issue especially when placement constraints are taken into account. Some products call for more technical setup procedures and measurements for the maker to tailor transfer functions.

Mainstream speakers sound like speakers not live music due to inherently flawed physics which are addressed in alternative designs. You'll end up with a much more natural sound, better decor match (at the fringes it's small companies with made to order products. Figured woods/veneers, inlays, and finishes can be mixed and matched), and spend less money (you're mostly paying for parts and a furniture maker's time).

Speakers like the B&W Nautilus Prestige (acoustically small drivers+baffles with damped transmission line enclosures) and RAAL Requisite Eternity (uniform horizontal polar response, and I'd guess that the vertical response matches up well around the cross-over frequencies) take some steps to get there, although tighter uniform dispersion interacts less with the room. Bass needs separate enclosures and/or dipoles. Room specific bass filter functions are a good idea.

> Secondly, the idea of having 4 sub is quite intrusive, one way to get into major fight with your wife.

All but one location can use smaller woofers (they don't have to extend below the room's fundamental resonance, so they're not really sub-woofers) in smaller enclosures. AFAIK Earl Geddes is using 6th order band-pass boxes which can be 6dB more efficient for a given cabinet size and low frequency cut-off than a sealed design. In theory they ring more than a sealed or 4th order ported design, but the room dominates time domain behavior. In theory they have more group delay, but you need cycles of audio to pick up bass. Generalizing from small "sub-woofers" sold to the mass-market with a strong resonance to substitute for real bass doesn't apply to good ported designs and shouldn't be applicable to 6th order ones.

Spatine,

Didn't your Preludes utilize the RABOS system (IIRC a bass EQ scheme)?. Since you asked for current technological implementations, the answers naturally tended toward sat/sub variations and, eventually, EQ. The separate sub idea allows more placement flexibility. Additional placement flexibility isn't going to hurt things, though it's not 100% guaranteed to help, I suppose. Similarly, multiple subs offer even more placement flexibility. In the end, choose the approach which best suits your needs, but -in your place- I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the potential advantages represented by some of the ideas here.
At the very least, there's some good food for thought.

Good Luck

Marty

Marty, I do appreciate the discussion. We are not talking and about your intention, and RABOS is definitely an EQ scheme of sort. The differences here are that I already know RABOS works and have been praised as an oddity in light of too many things that don't work. All I am saying is that hearing you guys somewhat disagreeing among yourselves doesn't help me build confidence in the unknown any.

Now what I didn't tell you yet is that even a few tens of dollars is not to be wasted in my life. So an upgrade from the Prelude MTS has to be truly an upgrade. Sort of better kinda thing is money not well spent. Why do I have a sense that in order to have that sufficiently spectacular improvement, thus justification to spend money, the order of improvement would have to be something in the scale of say ... the Wilson Maxx. Otherwise I am better off to sit still. Regardless of outcome, I do appreciate everybody's pitching in.

Given the investment you are prepared to make, and your reasonable expectations of a significant improvement, why don't you take the time to go to RMAF in the Fall and listen to some of the stuff suggested here as well as many other alternatives and see what's out there in your budget. You may find that your MTS are worth hanging onto, but you might also enjoy the trip and the show. I don't think you'll find a Wilson Maxx for $15K but you can always save your pennies.

"PS Duke - is there pricing info on the Swarm and Planetarium systems? I didn't see any on your web site. Not that I'm thinking....." - Martykl

Yeah my website is a bit out of date. I have a forum on audiocircle.com that has more up to date info.

The two Planetarium systems are 6.5 grand and 10 grand, and the vented Swarm (as used in the Planetariums) is 2.5 grand including amp. I also have a sealed Swarm that's a bit less expensive.

Not that I'm holding my breath.....

You could probably roll your own without too much trouble, just be sure and use an amp that has a 4th order lowpass filter. Or better yet, add a couple more of whatever you're using now (Rhythmics??).

Now Earl Geddes would probably say you only need 3 subs, as long as you elevate one so that it's above the centerline of the room (closer to the ceiling than to the floor) so that your low frequency sources are scattered in all three dimensions. Neither Earl's approach nor my variation is particularly high in WAF, as Spatine obviously figured out!

Duke