Good bass is possible at acceptable cost if you look to heritage speakers.
I still use some late 1980s Vandersteen 4As in one of my rooms. They were built in small numbers at much higher price in between filling all the orders for the 2Cs and they were overly complicated - basically a separate push-pull subwoofer in a single cabinet, driven by a separate amplifier and, to get best sound, a Vandersteen made active crossover. I have two bass amps, two amps for mid and highs, triwired, with separate crossover. But the pay off was that they sound very good indeed, probably better than anything up to the Vandersteen 5, they were 3Db down at 24 Hz, and they can be found (if you look awhile) for under $2K - sometimes well under.
There are a number of other classic speakers that were true full range including many under that price point - I'm sure people could recommend any number of them, Maggies, Infinity etc.
In other words, a full range set of speakers for less than you paid for one of your RELs.....
I still use some late 1980s Vandersteen 4As in one of my rooms. They were built in small numbers at much higher price in between filling all the orders for the 2Cs and they were overly complicated - basically a separate push-pull subwoofer in a single cabinet, driven by a separate amplifier and, to get best sound, a Vandersteen made active crossover. I have two bass amps, two amps for mid and highs, triwired, with separate crossover. But the pay off was that they sound very good indeed, probably better than anything up to the Vandersteen 5, they were 3Db down at 24 Hz, and they can be found (if you look awhile) for under $2K - sometimes well under.
There are a number of other classic speakers that were true full range including many under that price point - I'm sure people could recommend any number of them, Maggies, Infinity etc.
In other words, a full range set of speakers for less than you paid for one of your RELs.....
