Two Subs Vs. One

In defense of my statement, find us an engineer please. You may be "feeling" the bass when it is really loud or close. But, hearing it is another story. I'm not a bass heavy person. If you came to my house, you would be hard pressed to find my 15" velodyne, let alone tell if it's on or off unless listening to a track that has lots of deep bass. And yes, when watching a movie, I can localize the bass because it shakes the heck out of my room!

I was always taught a simple sub set-up technique for people without the money or access to test equipment. Place the sub anywhere. Get on your hands and knees and crawl around the room while playing some strong bass pieces. Where the bass sounds strongest or best is where you should move the sub to for optimum room response. Far from perfect but if you can't decide on the final location this may help.

Where the bass sounds strongest or best is where you should move the sub to

And that's usually going to be in a corner. Other factors in the whole one vs. two subs question are (1) where the crossover is set, (2) if your mains are runing full-range or are high passed, and (2) the distance from the sub(s) to the mains. These factors affect a listener's ability to localize the bass.

If your room is large, go fo two subs - I have tried one and two subs and found a lot of differences, particulary on how two subs clean the midrange better than on trying to cope with both channel information.

I might be a different animal, but the radiation pattern is localizable from my listening position (my room is not huge as you mentioned is yours) thou.

Good Luck

Fernando

The bass cabinet itself radiates energy and harmonics above its determined crossover point. This is one reason you can audibly determine the location of your sub and one big reason it effects the blend into the mains as well as the tone quality and staging aspects of the mains. Two sub set up properly sound better than one, again because they will blend better and increase the stage size and focus. Tom

Theaudiotweak...That's a good point about the caninet vibrating at higher frequency. However, it doesn't apply in my case because my custom subwoofer systems are embedded in a wall (and built like a brick SH).