Towers with built in subs vs separate subs

What are your room dimensions and what’s dictating your sub placement limitations?

Sub positioning success is dependant on room treatment or bass nodes.

The main speakers could have the best positions for imaging and the worst for even distribution of lower bass. In which case you limited your solutions.

Treatments are in the works.  Waiting on wife approval. 

My room is L shaped. Main part which consists of living room and kitchen is 20 deep and 23 wide. To the rear of that, all open, there is a 15x12 dinning area.  Lots of hard surfaces. System backs to stairs going to 2nd floor. I put a second floor on a 1200sq' ranch and blew most of the walls out of the lower level.  I just posted some pics if anyone cares to look

I like separate subs for several reasons:

• Ability to put an EQ in line with the sub only
• Ideally, using a high pass filter for the main speaker/amp which yields lower distortion and higher dynamic range
• Ability to place sub more optimally

Don't those founder series also have the room correction built in?

if its the same ones i was listening to a couple weeks ago they are very good, I liked them better than the Focal Sopra 2's I also listened to.

The room correction system integrates the bass much better than any sub alone will. It only works on the bass section but after we took the measurements and let the software do its thing it smoothed out the bass response significantly in the smallish listening room at the dealer. made me stand up and consider them more seriously. 

A built-in subwoofer will perform better for music. The texture and pace of bass notes will better match with the main speakers.

The 120H speakers do have a port on them to use anthems room correction system which is supposed to be preatty good.  I understand the benefits of separate subs but given very limited options as to placement and the built in room correction of the 120s, the built ins are probably the way to go. I think Anthem/founders is having a sale right now too and I just bought the mrx740 avr which comes with the room correction stuff. Thanks all for the help.  Now to pitch it to the wife....wish me luck

Good luck with the pitch...

I think Anthem/founders is having a sale right now too and I just bought the mrx740 avr which comes with the room correction stuff. Thanks all for the help.  Now to pitch it to the wife....wish me luck

Man, new AVR and now you’re pitching new speakers AND room treatments? If you pull this off you either married extremely well or you’re my hero!  Best of luck with all this 🤞🤞🤞.

@lanx0003 Wrote:

A built-in subwoofer will perform better for music. The texture and pace of bass notes will better match with the main speakers.

I agree! My speakers have a built in woofer. 😎

Mike

@ditusa ,

That is not the case at all. For subwoofers to perform their best they need to be in multiples and positioned differently than the main speakers. Subwoofers can be integrated perfectly with appropriate time, phase and amplitude management. All done perfectly with digital bass management. What more effective than an analog crossover. 

Thanks!  She kinda went down the rabbit hole with me. She likes the tech end.  She actually bought the founder 90c center to contribute to the cause. 

Thanks again all!

fuzztone is exactly right. 

Ported or sealed no amount of room optimization, correction or equalization will ameliorate the sound stage optimized null location of your speakers and allow the ability of -3dB subwoofers their full potential for room and system integration and performance. 

Your REL isn't nearly as restricted by room positioning often placed next to speakers. Since their lowest frequencies are down -6dB sub-bass speakers simply do not excite a rooms modes like subwoofers, at the expense of extra low frequency detail and heft. 

Save your money and just use the REL.

In the mean time try and organize an in home comparison audition of dealer positioned Vandersteen Trio's. With your family present you'll easily hear Paradigm's coherence paradigm. For me this became a far greater priority after living with three of the Canadian's top models.      

A built-in subwoofer will perform better for music. The texture and pace of bass notes will better match with the main speakers.

I don’t think this can be said so universally.  Often times in a given room the flexibility to place the subs where the bass sounds best in the context of a given room is extremely important and consequential in determining the final performance results.  If you do the proven “sub crawl” method to determine where subs/low bass work best in a room I highly doubt those locations will end up being within the confines of the front L/R speakers.  In short, you’re largely fighting room physics by requiring the subs/low bass to reside within the main speakers.

@ditusa ,  multiples simply aren't an option unless i stack them. I have 2 options as to placement...next to the R or next to the L.  My first choice would be to get a bad ass rel s series, but.....if placement is that important ,Im limited.  So why spend the $$

glennewdick 

Thats quite an endorsement saying the paradigm are better than the focal. 

Mr Soix,   i guess my question would be to you and others that think separate subs are better,  and i agree, they probably are, but can the room correction in an imperfect room with limited options as to placement get close to the results of doing a sub crawl with multiple placement options?