Thinking of adding a subwoofer for more bass.

Martykl
my objection to bass room eq is that once you eq out the 100-130hz rise and the nulls at 50 + 80, what do you have?
my guess would be that you end up with other problems or a fairly small sweet spot....the 2nd would work for an individual up to 4 person space, but for a HT where you'd want more persons to share good sound, you may be in for trouble.

Magfan,

What I've gotten is "order of magnitude" improvement. I have enjoyed the expected benefit in deep bass: organ, (particularly synthesized) bass lines and drums are all rendered with more definition and impact. The biggest difference has been in the mid-band. With the bass "muck" gone, the midrange imrpovement has been both unexpected and pretty startling.

I have ordered 2 bass busters (hemholtz resonators tuned to "absorb" excess energy in the range extending roughly 1 octave above roughly 80hz. At the least, this should minimize the amount of eq I need to apply in that range. It's an approach that might work for Marntz as well, either alone or in combo with eq'd woofs.

Marty

Magfan,

I should have responded to your other point. My set up is 2 channel, one listener. You may be quite right about unsatisfactory results over the broader area required for HT. I don't know, haven't tried.

Marty

If you are happy with current rig, than by all means LISTEN.
For a single sweet spot room, you got it licked. How big will those 'resonators be? I think my den acts like one at pretty low freqs.
My problem is a little different, my system being used by groups sometimes, like when the relatives drop in. Optimization over a larger space is an issue. I think I may have caught a break in this room, at least in the bass, it being 8 sided, and a few 45 degree walls.

I find it funny that many "audiophiles" will now recommend a sub. There once was a time when your system should not color the music only reproduce it, and a well built speaker (and system) should do this.... Or so I believed....EQ's were a no-no... and a sub where the listener can turn up one portion of the spectrum? Witch Craft...

Having owned the same system in 3 homes, I can tell you that placement fixed my problem. I placed my speakers only about 12 inches (yes more witch craft...I thought we needed the speakers 2 inched from the coffee table to sound good) from the back wall and the bass came to life. Not boomey, but clear and accurate..... and very hard hitting. In my other two homes it was more like 3 to 5 feet...

I also came to realize that not all recordings are created equal. Some recordings are just crap... I am not talking "audiophile crap" but rather a complete lack of bass that the average person can hear. My favorite example is "Rush" I can't listen to it on my high end system without a sub. I play it in my suv with an 8 inch sub or on my home theater system with an 18 inch sub and it sounds great. Michael Buble sound great on any of my systems... The bass drum is deep and rich and you feel every attack...

I like subs. They are a fast easy way to fix a bass lacking room... Moving the speakers was cheaper....