Why are subwoofers so polarizing?

I am on the opposite camp. In my many years of audio I have always used subwoofers with small and large speakers, but I only like augmenting, speaker-level-connection subwoofers such as REL and MJ Acoustics. When well blended to come "from underneath the mains" as an old REL brochure read, they will improve any speaker in my experience. And the most improvement is not primarily on bass, but on ambiance and soundstaging.

It's because the subwoofer is the domain of the enemy, home theater. Home theater represents everything that 2 channel does not. It's quantity over quality. 2 channel audio is all about quality over quantity. Home theater is for the ignorant masses that think big explosions are just so freakin cool they can hardly stand it. Because of the cromagnon target audience of home theater, subwoofers need not have any kind of fidelity. They just have to be loud and vibrate a lot. So, subwoofers got a reputation among audiophiles for being total garbage (and the vast majority are). Are there good ones, yes. Can they work in a 2 channel system, yes, but its not easy. Low bass is by far the hardest part of the frequency range to get right. That's why you see a lot of audiophile speakers don't even try to deal with sub 50 hz.

Isn't everything about this business polarized?

I've come to think that a simple 2 or 2.5 way with midwoofers and a seperate sub or two is more practical and flexible than a 3-way with big woofers. That doesn't necessarily imply little satellites. It's just that some of these little midwoofers are damn good and the cabinet doesn't have to be huge and 300 lbs.

I understand you very well. I had many big speakers like the B&W 800S. For stereo use many subwoofers were all too slow. I would not even want it for free in my system. I sold a lot of Rel sub's to clients. For me it was too slow and I hated the quality it gave. But.....these days the world has become different. I do a lot of measurements with Audyssey and in particular Audyssey pro. With the PLW-15 from Monitor Audio and my way of Audyssey Pro I have the stealth low freq, I ever dreamed of how I would want it to be. In my system you do not hear the sub, it is fully inegrated in the system. I use it to 140hz. Instruments and voices become more musical and touchable. This subwoofer is superior in speed compared to the slow ( as hell) Rel and Velodyne sub's. All the tests I did with these sub's all failled.

I suspect that there are 3 main reasons:

1). High end audio was spawned ca. 1970 as a reaction to Japanese solid state electronics. The high end argument was "simpler is better". Skip the tech approach and banish unnecessary circuit embellishment. Bye bye tone controls. Subwoofers involve more devices in the chain, so they were contrary to the philosophy of the time

2) Subwoofers are hard to set up right and often suck when set up wrong. Many people form judgements after hearing bad set-ups

3) The easiest way IME to get a good set up is with a software bass management package like Audyssey. This, of course, requires a visit to the dark side - digital (or digitized analog) audio. You know how that plays with many in this community

Between those 3 factors, I believe you'll find most of the answer to your question

Marty