Why is good, deep bass so difficult? - Myths and their Busters

Most speakers will provide plenty of bass.  My personal experience with a pair of Elac FS209.2's for stereo use, running them with a cheap DAC and a fairly cheap amp (adcom GFA 5802) was that they were completely under performing when it came to bass. I was using good cables (cardas neutral reference) I tried a sub woofer and it just didn't match the speakers in there quickness...  mind you I tried with a home theater sub and not a musical sub.... Then I read some where that they were a demanding speaker and required a good amp to command them properly. Fast forward to today with some front end equipment upgrades I'm getting very impressive bass from these speakers and have no need or desire for any kind of sub... I have effectively solved my bass issues.

The low end notes are so tight and precise it still amazes me... who ever hears my system asks me where the sub is... lol
My main upgrades were a new DAC (Yggdrasil) and new bryston 7B3 mono blocks.. Also a used LS26... but the preamp was the final edition and bass was achieved prior to its integration in to the stereo. 
I can strongly suggest that the majority of lack of bass issues is the result of inadequate quality amplification.. As another poster here already mentioned... 
Now that I have bass ... fine tuning it is another story altogether ... now we get into speaker placement and room treatments....

Just my 2 cents from personal experience.. 

Good speakers in a good room sound a lot more satisfying than top end speakers in a mediocre room.

Many people have no idea how good even 2-way systems can be properly set up. Proper room acoustics can make them sound enormous.

Best,

E

There are a lot of good points here. . . I thought my 20.1 Maggies went low until I got the subs set up and dialed in. The difference is incredible. Friends come over and expect to be blown from their seats but with proper speaker placement, using multiple subs, and room correction all they get is an tuneful accurate sound. The support that the subs give to music is very satisfying. After I get asked to turn it up two or three times and get close to symphonic concert levels comments are that the system is so "clear." They don't understand how it can be so loud but not hurt their ears. While I don't think people need to be acoustical engineers or physicists to get the best from their systems understanding basics can make a huge impact. Room interactions are almost as important as the system itself in my opinion. 

So here are a few things to consider.

1. Most woofers double. 40 Hz turns quickly to 80 Hz. 
2. The law of physics would dictate that a 10" woofer will not keep up with a 6" midrange. Too much mass. They must use very stiff suspensions to bring them back to neutral position after each excursion.
3. Woofers are screwed into a large piece of MDF. The very back and forth movement of the diaphragm causes that piece of MDF to resonate. 
4. Massive objects resonate at frequencies that are hard, very hard to deal with.

My system for the three years was using stereo subs and a DSPeaker Antimode 2.0 to do the room correction . I was happy with my bass response until I heard a distributed bass setup at a listening session at another audio files home .Back to the drawing board . I added in two more subs . Installed hi pass caps in my amps used my DSPeakers crossover and stereo sub correction function and good old listening to adjust the levels and now have the best most even bass response in my listening room to date .  Duke is right in this case more subs is less boom in the room .