Acoustic treatment

geoffkait:
">>>I’m afraid you missed my point. The bass information’s there on the disc, and tons of it, it just isn’t being retrieved properly or completely - not by a long shot! - As fate would have it the CD playback systems are plagued by a number of technical problems even after all these years that prevent a lot of information from getting to the speakers. Primarily, scattered light and vibration of the CD itself, but also some other problems."

Hello geoffkait,

Yes, I did miss your point. Maybe if you didn’t wear that huge hat, your point would be more easily seen. Oh, Wow! Wowie Wow Wow! Now that you’re hat’s off and I’m closer, I can see you obviously have a very significant point there. Oh my god! No way! What the....Wow, maybe you should put your huge cowboy hat back on now, that point you have there on your head is really freaking me out!
Anyway, I completely agree with you that CD recording and playback does have its problems and has the capacity and potential to be of much higher quality. Those issues you mentioned and the serious issue of compressed dynamics (Loudness wars) caused me to now use less CD content and more 24bit/96KHz FLAC downloads, especially those recorded direct to digital.
However, this thread was started inquiring about bass room treatments and my suggestion was to invest in a better bass system like a DBA instead. While I believe the subjects of the quality of CD recordings and playback are very valid and important ones, I think it may be better suited for its own thread or threads.

Tim

Tim, I think you should find a job as a used car salesman, excuse me salesperson.
Actually summed bass below 100 Hz is an advantage in most acoustic situations you would have in the typical home.
Jon, It would be easier with identical subs. But if you have to use the large sub midway between your speakers and the small ones flanking. I would mono the lot. 
Geoffkait  you did not answer the question, how big? Wikipedia has the equation. I'll give you a hint. It is highly unlikely that anyone here has a room large enough to fit a Tube Trap that large.
Back to Tim, The term "room control" is a misnomer. You are not controlling the room. You are controlling the speaker to correct response abnormalities of the speaker/room system, to make both sides have exactly the same response and correct timing so that the sound from each driver hits the listening position at exactly the same time. With a good unit the listening position can be any where in the room! Where ever you plant the microphone. You still have to minimize acoustic aberrations in the room or you will waste a lot of power and even bottom out a sub driver. Any sub woofer system is going to sound better because you can correct and improve the sub inherent frequency response which is hardly ever flat. Every uncorrected smaller (12" and less) sub that I have ever measured has a response curve that falls off as you go down. 
This can be correct and I even give them a response that rises to +3 db at 20 Hz then at 28 Hz falls off like a rock 10th order! Tim, if you want your bass to really perk up you want to make sure each one is exactly the same distance from your listening position. You can put them anywhere in the room as long as the distance is the same. They should preferably all be up against a wall. It also helps if your speakers are also that same distance assuming everything is phase correct. 
                                         
                            

Huh? OK, I’ll repeat it. Maybe it will sink in this time. The frequency of operation for a Helmholtz resonator is a function of 3 variables - volume, nozzle diameter and nozzle length. Therefore, you would be able, well, maybe not you personally, but someone who knew what he was doing, to construct a Helmholtz resonator for 20 Hz that did not (rpt not) have a very large volume. You can also affect bass performance with tiny little bowl resonators. There’s lots of ways to skin a cat.

Sorry folks. It falls off like a rock at 18 Hz. My typing is worse than awful.
They did not teach boys how to type because we did not become secretaries. 

Geoffkait. Still not a direct answer. I probably knew what a Helmholtz resonator was before you were born. In 1978 I had two RH Labs (Randy Hooker) sub woofers. They were essentially enclosed Helmholtz resonators adjusted to 30 Hz if I remember correctly. They were by today's standards huge. I do not have a scientific calculator but to make something the shape of a tube trap a 20 hz Helmholtz resonator it would have to be huge. Think of a 20 Hz organ pipe. 32 feet long. Yes I know it is a different principle. Oh, and the equation is

                          F = v/2 pi times the square root of A/V L

F is the frequency, v is the speed of sound, I hope you know what pi is,
A is the cross sectional area of the stem, V is the volume of the chamber and L is the length of the stem.