Small or large sub for music

" The Swarm and Debra subs are an excellent example of using science and good acoustic theory to maximize the benefit for the minimum dollar. They have addressed the biggest issue, the room. It can be done with any 4 subs. You should see what some of the crazy home theater guys do, as the Swarm would never have enough deep bass for them (they want 120db @10 hz), things like quad JTR Captivators. Not to plug another forum, but AVSforums in the subwoofer section has some really great information on setup, tuning, and objective reviewing. The home theater guys have done more for good bass than just about anyone."

mcreyn,

Wowie Wow Wow McWoofer.....Testify!
You stated: " The Swarm and Debra subs are an excellent example of using science and good acoustic theory to maximize the benefit for the minimum dollar. They have addressed the biggest issue, the room. It can be done with any 4 subs."
What happened? Did you actually get a personal audition of a distributed bass array (DBA)? In any case, your quote above is an excellent summary of what the Swarm and Debra represent. And, yes, the DBA concept’s ability to transform a room’s bass response using almost any 4 subs is like magic but true, science really is like magic but real.

"You should see what some of the crazy home theater guys do, as the Swarm would never have enough deep bass for them (they want 120db @10 hz), things like quad JTR Captivators. "

I am familiar with the ’crazy home theater guys’ typically loitering at AVSforums and other a/v sites with their brute force approach to reproducing bass in a home environment. However, I have too much respect for the supporting mechanisms and other surfaces in my home to adopt this ’Bringing Down the House’ approach.  I can't recall ever desiring more bass listening to any source or content.  Besides, the supplied amp has controls for setting the overall level - I can recall tweaking that and the crossover frequency (currently the level is set at about half and cthe rossover at about 40 Hz)
     Loud and overpowering is not my conception of ideal bass. My version of ideal bass for my combo ht and music system is more nuanced, having the dual qualities of power and definition required for state of the art bass response reproduction of both.

Tim

@noble100 --

(I am familiar with the ’crazy home theater guys’ typically loitering at AVSforums and other a/v sites with their brute force approach to reproducing bass in a home environment. However, I have too much respect for the supporting mechanisms and other surfaces in my home to adopt this ’Bringing Down the House’ approach. I can’t recall ever desiring more bass listening to any source or content. Besides, the supplied amp has controls for setting the overall level - I can recall tweaking that and the crossover frequency (currently the level is set at about half and cthe rossover at about 40 Hz))
Loud and overpowering is not my conception of ideal bass. My version of ideal bass for my combo ht and music system is more nuanced, having the dual qualities of power and definition required for state of the art bass response reproduction of both.

Some of the guys over at the AVS forum have true monster sub setups that would indeed be able to bring down the house/apartment building if called upon to "stretch their legs," and that could fill even large auditorium cinemas with bass impact and depth that would satisfy and impress most. I guess having sub setups like that is not about letting them sit idly at <100dB’s, but to feel them in action - loudly at that, and with a physical sensation that would dwarf any typical hifi sub-system. It would be safe to say many of them like their subs run HOT.

Having said that "loud and overpowering" is not all there is to it. I would agree with the mention that there are extremely experienced individuals over there (at the AVS forum) who have close to exhaustive knowledge of sub implementation, and to whom "overkill" is only an approximation to sufficient headroom; headroom being one of the key words and signifier for the measure of bass quality. It’s about achieving 20dB’s of headroom at the minimum, so to have distortion levels in the lower single digits even at the loudest levels you’d ever desire down to below 20Hz. You would think it’s only about blowing your hair/head off with über-SPL’s, but from the setups in this caliber I’ve heard there’s nuance and definition in abundance, and not least a relaxed, enveloping and totally effortless presentation that’s quite addictive. I definitely subscribe to the duality of "power and definition," and this way you’ll potentially get both in measures hard to describe.

Generally I find audiophiles to be almost intimidated by or ridiculing air displacement prowess and high sensitivity and SPL capabilities. It’s too easy and reductive just labeling it as an in-every-case brute-ness, and at the same time robbing it of the "sophistication" audiophiles are so eager to pursue. Again, there’s more to than that..

Hello phusis,

     Your post was a well written, reasonable and articulate defense of the monster sub setups of some of the AVS forum members. 

     I like to think of myself as reasonable, open minded  and resistant to stereotyping .  Your post made me realize that I've seen and read about many of these systems on AVS and other sites in the past but never listened to one in action.  

     As you constructively pointed out, I believe I was stereotyping these monster sub setups as 'bass by brute force' and dismissing them as not capable of providing both high quality bass power and, simultaneously, high quality bass definition.  You've heard some of these monster setups and claim these are built by knowledgeable bass enthusiasts with the skills to attain both impressive bass power and bass definition.  
     
     So, I think it's best if I just take your word for the capabilities of these monster setups, thank you for pointing out my stereotyping, try to refrain from doing so in the future and try to get a personal audition of one of these monster bass setups soon.
  Thanks,
     Tim  

It's nice to use subwoofers for theatre systems. The best option is to buy speakers for your audio system that do NOT need subs.

"It’s nice to use subwoofers for theatre systems. The best option is to buy speakers for your audio system that do NOT need subs."

Why? The best speaker placement for imaging and bass are generally mutually exclusive!!!!! Are you willing to place 4 main speakers around your room at the optimal positions to minimize standing waves (ala a swarm setup)?  Show me a full range speaker system that can go flat below 20hz that costs less than $10,000 a pair and is optimized for placement in the bass where the imaging is the best. The system in my office (a used set of Totem Mites and a Rythmik L12 for a total cost of $900) does that comfortably (when I say comfortably, it starts to roll off at 23 hz is and 1 db down at 20hz).

Even with "full" range speakers, good subwoofers with proper setup make a great difference. The problem is most people want to plop them down, spend no time setting them up, and then turn them up too loud resulting in a bloated, slow, plodding sound.

It takes time to get a sub properly setup and integrated. In my office, it took over 100 sweeps with REW with the sub in 3 different places to get a really good integration where it disappears. It can take a lot of playing with phasing, crossover and placement to get it right, but once you do, you can enjoy truly full range sound that lets you hear things you never knew existed.