Who knows how to set up a bass swarm? (DBA)

Edit: I see that millercarbon posted while I was typing... oh well, hopefully this won’t muddy the waters too much...

I’d suggest placing one of the REL subs along one of the side walls, closer to the back of the room than to the front, but not the same distance from its nearest corner as either of your mains.

Place the other REL sub along the back wall, closer to the other other corner, and again not the same distance from its corner as either of the other three.

If you have the option of inverting the polarity on the REL sub that is farthest from the mains (phase = 180 degrees), I suggest doing so.

For subs which are closer to your ears than the main speakers, I suggest not running them up any higher than 80 Hz, and less than that if the lowpass filter in those subs is less than 24 dB per octave. What you want to avoid is, the subs passing upper bass/lower midrange energy loud enough for give away their locations. Since they are closer to your ears than the main speakers, you ear/brain system will tend to hear them as the source of these sounds, which is why we want to roll off their top end aggressively.

If you are doing this by ear, here’s what I suggest:

First adjust the level (loudness) of your subs for best sound. You want them all at approximately the same loudness, so that all are approximately equal contributors. How loud the subs are makes the biggest difference, so we do that first.

Next adjust the low-pass filter frequencies of the subs. This makes the next biggest difference.

If you have phase controls, adjust them last. This makes the smallest difference.

Now cycle back through this sequence several times. In particular, setting the level may take a long time because the ear is especially sensitive to small changes in sound pressure level in the bass region.

Best of luck! 

Duke

Ha! Its been a year and I only did this once so I forgot it was level first then crossover! That makes more sense. Level makes more difference and its easier to hear the crossover when the level is right.

@millercarbon yeah I would never crossover the esl 13a, I probably didn’t communicate that right. I was wondering where I should crossover or “low pass” the subs but by reading yours and @audiokinesis info it looks like I want to low pass them pretty low so I don’t give away their location. 

Will I lose imaging of bass instruments? 

No, it is if anything even better. Don't know for sure why that is. Probably because smoother. Maybe Duke knows why. All I know is in spite of having 5 subs you never get the impression any of them is doing anything. In the beginning I would even sometimes go over and touch a woofer to make sure it was even connected! 

Read the description on my System page https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 where Mike says " Excellent tonal balance and wide, pinpoint soundstage! Bass was tight and articulate and seemed to be coming from everywhere, but well integrated with the music, band, performance. Never boomy or out of control." In other words the bass is an integral part of the sound stage and imaging. 

My hunch is this is because our sense of imaging location comes from a frequency range quite a bit higher than the subs go. With only one or two subs the low bass isn't smooth enough to fully integrate and so the sense of imaging is weaker. With many subs the bass is very smooth, there's even less auditory cues telling you where it might be, and so the superior imaging cues from the higher frequencies take over and you "know" where it is, even though at that low a frequency there's just no way you would know. 

+2 European or African swallow?