Why the fascination with subwoofers?

Dear @phusis  : In the overall subs subject problem with some people as atmasphere is just igonrance levels/low knowledge level even this person has no subs in his system, go figure.

As you and me Noble 100 confirms that we can have really good bass managment with two true subs. Noble likes 4 because he used as HT too.

As you I only need one seat position to listen MUSIC and the only seat position is in front-middle of the main speakers because is where belongs the mid/high frequency ranges that only has one and only position to enjoy it.

At least we have first hand experiences that attest our coincident statements .

The other issue in almost all the bass threads in this forum is that almost no one cares about quality of that low bass ( only cares to room evenly bass reproduction. ) and many just do not care about the critical importance of the bass below 20hz but as you said: " that's just me ".



R.

Hello atmosphere,

     Agreed.  
     Standing waves result in room bass modes which are perceived as bass exaggeration, attenuation or even cancellation at the specific points they occur at in the room.  These room bass modes resulting from standing waves also vary by frequency and typically exist in the bass frequencies up to about 350 Hz.  
     As I understand how the distributed bass array concept functions, the 4 subs distributed throughout the room actually are intended to create more bass standing waves and bass modes that are fairly well distributed throughout the entire room.  
     Once there's a good distribution of bass room modes existing in a given room, the principles of psycho-acoustics are then utilized by the DBA concept.  Humans are very poor at discerning the originating source of deep bass frequencies (below about 80-100 Hz) but very sensitive in discerning the pitch and the volume of these deep bass frequencies as well as any changes in pitch and volume.  Our brains process these multiple bass room modes (bass peaks and dips at various frequencies)  by summing and averaging them which results in a perceived smoothing effect to the bass.   
      Scientific research by Earl Geddes, Floyd O'Toole and others has proven that the more subs in a given room the more the effects of bass standing waves are reduced and the more the bass response is perceived as good(accurate, smooth and detailed). They realized there's a practical limit to the acceptable number of subs in a domestic room, however, and their data showed that some of the bass smoothing effect began with as few as 2 subs in a given room but there was a threshold reached with 4 subs in a given room which mitigated the effects of the vast majority of standing waves in the entire room, with each additional sub beyond 4 only providing smaller and marginal improvements. 
        This means that 4 subs will assure very good bass response at all bass frequencies throughout the entire room, including the chosen dedicated listening position.  2 subs cannot provide very good bass response throughout the entire room, only at a single dedicated listening position and this very good bass response cannot be assured at all frequencies and with all recordings. 

Tim 
       

you CAN have bass that is accurate, detailed, smooth, natural and effortless with two subs, end of story.

Sure. That is why I qualified my comment: 

**If** you encounter a standing wave, it often cannot be fixed with only 2 subs. And it can't be fixed with room correction or room treatment.

(emphasis added; ***IF***)
If you *don't* have troubles with a standing wave then one or two subs can give excellent response.

The bass in "other parts" of the room aren't important particularly unless you curl up in the corner for a panic attack or some sort of modern dance move. I have a sloping high ceiling in my listening room, with one side opening up to a kitchen/dining area and the other side having large windows far enough away to make "first" reflections irrelevant, especially with horns that put the soundstage in front of me. In this arrangement my 2 subs work perfectly relative to the sound at the point where it matters...my pointy little head.

wolf_garcia:
"The bass in "other parts" of the room aren't important particularly unless you curl up in the corner for a panic attack or some sort of modern dance move."
Hello wolf,

    I agree that good bass response throughout the entire room is not important for many but it is for some such as myself. No, I don't curl up in the corner from my panic attacks or windup there from my very creative
modern dance moves..... at least as far as you know.

    It's important for me because I have 6 seating positions spread around my 23x16 ft living room that I use for both music and ht. Only one seat is in the sweet spot, precisely between my main speakers and directly facing a 65" plasma hdtv wall mounted between them. I have my dipole panel speakers positioned about 4' away from the front wall for optimum freq. response and imaging at the sweet spot seat. This works great for music at this seat but, of course, the stereo imaging effect is compromised at the other 5 seating positions along the left and right walls although the bass response is excellent at all seats.
      But music still sounds very good from these 5 other positions and, since all 5 have a clear view of the hdtv, it works very well for ht, too. The 5.4 surround experience (5 speakers and 4 dba subs) is very good from all 6 seats in the room. The bass response is outstanding, equally deep, detailed, powerful and dynamic from all seats with still very good mid-range/treble surround sound response and perception at the 5 non-sweet spot seats.
       With the volume goosed a bit on Blu-ray movies, the impressive bass impact can normally be relied upon to have at least 1 family member or guest jumping out of their seat at least once during any action movie at a bass intensive scene.


Tim