Why the fascination with subwoofers?

Many people today like loud rock music.  Live, these songs are aided by towers of lousy speakers driven by even worse amplifiers that the move so much air the stadium shakes. 

People who have grown up with this thumping noise and gut-punching "music" want to reproduce that in their home and car systems; subs help IF they are efficient enough to work with their internal amp (powered) or your external amp--needs to be rather powerful unless you have Cerwin-Vega or other very efficient bass-heavy speakers.

Orchestral music that features actual music or sounds and harmonics (cannons, for example??) that enter the lower frequencies that humans can hear also require speakers that reproduce those frequencies accurately.

Systems that incorporate large bass cabs, like the old Mark Levinson HQD system, which used 24" Hartley speakers in huge cabs, actually CAN reproduce those frequencies given enough CLEAN amplification and the proper crossovers, etc.  Such systems not only give the listener the "live" experience, but also provide (as accurately as possible in a reproducing system) the live orchestral experience.

Finally, film buffs who have exotic home theater systems use them to reproduce the artificially-enhanced soundtrack of their fav films showing buildings blowing up--not really in the 20HZ range, but ENHANCED is the key item here--and other loud, gut-punching sounds that are really in the lower mid-range, but who's quibbling when your room is shaking and your stomach is pounding?  

Soon, we will have holographic films where the action will take place IN YOUR ROOM, or seem to, anyway.  Sound in those cases has to envelop the viewer/listener, and the love of the gut-punch or explosion at 120db is what people seem to want.  Well, until their ENT doctor gets ahold of their hearing tests, anyway...

Cheeers!

IT's probably true subwoofers get a bad rap with audiophiles because in many cases they are set up in a manner that adds too much bass which can also obscure the higher frequencies.  

But like anything else, its just a matter of doing it right, using the right sub set up the right way.    

The best setups do all frequencies in music one might hear well, generally accepted as being from 20hz to 20000hz.   Older ears will lose their ability to hear the higher frequencies over time  but not the lower.

Interesting comments from all. I see that a carefully chosen low frequency subwoofer can be potentially helpful. I have some Vandersteen speakers and I could supplement them with Vandersteen sub(s) as an experiment to see if I am missing something. Thanks for the responses.

@gdnrbob 

I am glad you are considering the Vandy subs.

Hi Bob, you responded to a second post that wasn't clear on its own.
I am not considering Vandy subs but rather I considered the Vandy M7-HP passive crossover, which costs about $2,500.  I probably would have already tried it except my main speakers do great bass (twin 9-inch woofers in a sealed, i.e., acoustic suspension, enclosure) down to about 40 Hz, so I really need to cross over lower than the fixed 100 Hz design of the Vandersteen passive crossover.  Currently, I am using twin Aerial SW-12 subs which sound great and utilize a remote control that can be used to easily adjust the output level for different recordings. 

I am considering adding a third SW-12 sub to the existing two, which are operated as single stereo channels and are placed in the front corners outside of my main speakers.  I will place the third sub along the rear wall or in one of the rear corners outputting a summed bass signal.  I cross them over between 40-45 Hz and keep my baseline output level (0 position) at a low'ish level to just fill in the lowest frequencies rather than to "shake the building."  IMO, if subs sound bad, this is where most sub users have made the mistake - the level is too high. I sold bass reflex (i.e., ported) speakers that went lower but excited room vibrations on about half of the recordings I listen to.  Adding one sub did not correct that situation but switching to speakers only going down to about 40 Hz and adding two subs absolutely corrected it.  Bass is now solid and controlled and rarely interacts with the room.

If I were starting over, and didn't already own the Aerial subs, I would look very hard at Duke's Audiokinesis Swarm Subwoofer System (four subs) as a reasonably priced alternative to obtain great bass.

Many do try to do just that. Look around however, it quickly becomes very obvious the hardest most expensive thing you can find is two quality speakers with true 20 Hz bass. They essentially do not exist. Turns out (read on) that for reasons of physics they cannot exist. Which is why they don’t.

@millercarbon
This statement appears to be false.


My speakers at home are made by Classic Audio Loudspeakers. They are the model T-3.3.


They have a pair of 15" woofers. One of the them is the TAD 1602, which has a free air resonance of 21 Hz. Are you really trying to say that a speaker like that in a properly tuned bass reflex cabinet (my speakers are the size of refrigerators) can't go to 20Hz?? They seem to have plenty of undistorted output at 20Hz in my room.