Top notch speakers with their own sub

Spatine,

Didn't your Preludes utilize the RABOS system (IIRC a bass EQ scheme)?. Since you asked for current technological implementations, the answers naturally tended toward sat/sub variations and, eventually, EQ. The separate sub idea allows more placement flexibility. Additional placement flexibility isn't going to hurt things, though it's not 100% guaranteed to help, I suppose. Similarly, multiple subs offer even more placement flexibility. In the end, choose the approach which best suits your needs, but -in your place- I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the potential advantages represented by some of the ideas here.
At the very least, there's some good food for thought.

Good Luck

Marty

Marty, I do appreciate the discussion. We are not talking and about your intention, and RABOS is definitely an EQ scheme of sort. The differences here are that I already know RABOS works and have been praised as an oddity in light of too many things that don't work. All I am saying is that hearing you guys somewhat disagreeing among yourselves doesn't help me build confidence in the unknown any.

Now what I didn't tell you yet is that even a few tens of dollars is not to be wasted in my life. So an upgrade from the Prelude MTS has to be truly an upgrade. Sort of better kinda thing is money not well spent. Why do I have a sense that in order to have that sufficiently spectacular improvement, thus justification to spend money, the order of improvement would have to be something in the scale of say ... the Wilson Maxx. Otherwise I am better off to sit still. Regardless of outcome, I do appreciate everybody's pitching in.

"PS Duke - is there pricing info on the Swarm and Planetarium systems? I didn't see any on your web site. Not that I'm thinking....." - Martykl

Yeah my website is a bit out of date. I have a forum on audiocircle.com that has more up to date info.

The two Planetarium systems are 6.5 grand and 10 grand, and the vented Swarm (as used in the Planetariums) is 2.5 grand including amp. I also have a sealed Swarm that's a bit less expensive.

Not that I'm holding my breath.....

You could probably roll your own without too much trouble, just be sure and use an amp that has a 4th order lowpass filter. Or better yet, add a couple more of whatever you're using now (Rhythmics??).

Now Earl Geddes would probably say you only need 3 subs, as long as you elevate one so that it's above the centerline of the room (closer to the ceiling than to the floor) so that your low frequency sources are scattered in all three dimensions. Neither Earl's approach nor my variation is particularly high in WAF, as Spatine obviously figured out!

Duke

Spatine,

Fair enough.

I didn't mean to be critical of your response, just suggesting that you might want to kick these facts around in your head a little more before reaching any conclusions - hence, the "food for thought". IMHO, this thread probably contains more useful info for achieving good sound than 99% of the material on A'gon. Figuring out how to utilize that info is your gig.

In a nutshell: optimal placement of multiple bass sources is a useful tool if it's available to you. Maybe it's not available (WAF or cost). EQ, whether from Infinity, Audyssey/SVS, Velodyne or others is also a useful tool, but others have -quite correctly- pointed out certain limitations to the approach (careful with nulls). Room analysis will make placement easier. Any thoughtful, properly implemented combo of these techniques is likely to improve in-room performance.

Take that FWIW.

Marty