your opinion on subwoofers in two channel


postive or negative...should you buy better amps, cables, players, speakers and not put the money on subs?
dwhitt
I second Butsy: full range floorstander may offer you a real placement issue between imaging and bass response (room nodes and standing waves). With a sub, placement is way more flexible and you get the advantage of monitor imaging. $ for $, I would think monitor + sub is a better deal unless you start spending over $7-8k on large full range speakers IF AND ONLY IF both monitors and sub are well integrated (you need a friend and some patience). In the budget category, Martin Logan - even the Grotto ($750 used) is a sweet deal, then REL. If you do not have monitors yet and have $5,000 to spend for both (price new), combo ProAc 1SC and their new sub. Amazing.
I tried for 3 weeks to get two Velodyne DD 10's with room correction built in to seamlessly mix with my Martin Odysseys. Went so far a to hire a professional. It was just wasn't good enough. Sold the subs and the Odysseys, bought the Martin Logan Summits with powered bass. My though not ruler flat is very very good.

My two cents but the money into the best full range that meets your budget.

Save the subs for movies.
I have a pair of PMC GB1s 29Hz-25kHz. Heaven in the mids and highs, just need a tad more low end. I have limited space 15x11 and limited budget, 700.00. What specs in a sub should I be looking at? This is something I do not understand when reading the many threads on 2 ch sub matching...
The main problem with subs is that they are extremely dificult to locate, you can be playing around with them for the longest time, and when you think everything is in order, you turn off the sub while playing music and you realize how much music is being "blocked" by the sub, a lot of information on bass and midbass that is being cancelled by the sub in order to get the whuum dull sound of the subwoofer.
I will try to draw an image of what I am saying, Imagine your sound is like a graph with crests and valleys, when you add a sub you get a line in the center (lower maybe) and from that line you have mids and highs going up and lows going down, but everything around the line is blurry, When I finally located the sub in a "good" position I would get deeper sound, the line was erased and the valley seemed now deeper (a good thing) than with no subwoofer, but beware, I had masking tape all around the subwoofer marking 1/8" movements!!!
My opinion today is that a subwoofer should be crossed higher than 100 hz so you can listen clearly to what they are doing, and be aware if they are messing everything up.

If you are willing to get into this, get subs, with the price a good sub is going for, and the terrible resale value they have, I would recommend changing main speakers for more bass capable ones...