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Best multi-purpose subwoofer

Best multi-purpose subwoofer - meaning it fulfills my pursuit for audiophile 2 channel listening and my home theater needs. I have a large TV room 22x22x8 (LxDxH) with floor standing Von Schweikerts VR4 speakers. Room is used both for dedicated 2 channel listening as well as home theater. Unfortunately the design of the room is not the best as it has glass on one side (leading to the backyard) and laundry room behind (meaning its also the family room). Currently I have a 8 inch NHT SW1 old subwoofer which needs an upgrade. The maximum dimensions I can afford on a subwoofer is  15x18x20 (LxDxH). 
As mentioned I want to be able to connect a High Level Input (for 2 channel) and .LFE for HT - so the subwoofer will need to have both. Grace for dedicated listening as well as power for HT. The only time I would consider a larger subwoofer is if it has wireless capabilities so I can place it anywhere in the room. 
Any suggestions on which subwoofer may work best for me? 
128x128ghulamr
kink56's avatar
kink56
91 posts
 
I have 3 ENTEC subwoofers in one system.  I have them set up as a stereo pair and one in the center as a summed channel.   Since reading this thread I decided to take the center one and place it off to the extreme one side and at a 90 degree angle to my stereo pair.  Well I'll be damned if it didn't make the whole stereo sound more defined.   I can see where the  Audio Kinesis Swarm concept is so well liked by TAS. 
audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 

Kink56 wrote: "Well I’ll be damned if it didn’t make the whole stereo sound more defined."

Nice job!

Improved bass smoothness often pays dividends beyond what our intuition would lead us to expect.

Some of this is predicted by the Fletcher-Munsen curves, which bunch up south of 100 Hz. This indicates that the ear has a heightened sensitivity to variations in SPL at low frequencies, as a 3 dB difference at 40 Hz is perceptually comparable to a 6 dB difference at 1 kHz. On the other hand the ear has poor time-domain resolution at low frequencies, so differences in arrival time in the bass region are usually imperceptible. This is good news for the distributed multisub approach.

But I cannot explain the subjective improvement well above the bass region that many people report after making improvements in their subwoofer systems. I hear it too, but until I can offer a plausible explanation my Ministry of Propaganda will focus on other things.

Duke

wspohn's avatar
wspohn
603 posts
 
I don't use subs with my main listening system as my speakers are 3 db down at 20 hz, but I do augment bass for video use and run a pair of the Hsu VTF15H Mk 2 for home theatre use, and agree that they are excellent.  Hard to get  more bang for your buck than that.

Strongly suggest that those who can afford it get a matched pair rather than a single.
noble100's avatar
noble100
2,419 posts
 
Duke/Audio Kinesis,

     Thank you for your unexpected but very informative and interesting contributions to this thread.
     I think many have the somewhat mistaken belief that attaining good in-room bass response is simply a matter of using 1 or 2 subs of a particular, or 'right', brand and model in their systems.  
     My experience is that 1 or 2 good subs can achieve good bass response at one specific sweet spot in most rooms but this results in inconsistent bass response throughout the remainder of the room, heard at various specific spots in the room as bass peaks, nulls and even bass absence.  For those unconcerned with good bass response being restricted to a specific sweet spot, I think 1 or 2 subs properly located can be a satisfying solution.
     The distributed bass array concept of 4 subs properly positioned definitely has the advantage of producing very good bass response throughout the entire room for those that require it. 
     However, I've noticed other benefits to the bass quality that were unexpected that I'm theorizing are only possible due to there being 4 subs dispersed throughout the room and their cumulative affect. 
     My best description is the bass in my room became more agile or flexible in the sense it can faithfully reproduce whatever bass is dictated by the source material, whether it's music or HT.  It can be finely detailed on music that allows for the easy identifying of the different bass instruments being played, following the separate bass lines and also the small changes in pitch, tone and volume of each instrument.  The bass can also be powerful and delivered with sudden impact which helps convey the large dynamics of live music and the low frequency effects on HT.  
     My main point is that a distributed bass array system, whether the Swarm or a custom setup, has more benefits than just good bass response throughout the entire room, it also elevates the quality of that bass to state of the art.  I've never been able to achieve this level of bass quality in my system with 1 or 2 subs.

Tim
audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 

Thank you very much Tim. I find your posts quite educational, as I think you have more real-world experience than I do, and you have paid very close attention to your experiences.  And you write very well!

I think a good distributed multisub setup is pretty effective at largely removing the room’s signature in the bass region, which is normally superimposed atop all of our recordings. We don’t realize what has been happening until it’s gone.

Duke

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