My experience adding subwoofers to 2 channel

mijostyn:
"Oh, and Tim. I am not saying that in certain situations a DBA system may not be the easiest way to reasonable bass performance. It may work reasonable well for many people. What I am saying is that in the end it will not produce the most accurate and realistic results but do to do so usually requires advanced digital speaker control that at this time costs at least $6K. If however you have a tape measure, some savvy and some luck, you might be able to get there without the computer. An important part of this hobby is being able to screw around with your system to see if you can get it to sound better and in doing so you learn. So, start screwing around!"


Hello mijostyn,

     Incorrect, wrong and you're mistaken.  Millercarbon absolutely knows you're wrong because he had the intelligence and cajones to give it a try.  There's no need for expensive advanced digital speaker control gear, any other DSP or PEQ equipment, tape measures, meters, bass room treatments, voodoo, chants, snake oil, savvy or even luck. 
    The key ingredients are just a minimum of 4 subs , proper positioning of all 4 subs and some precise and time consuming listening, calibration  and repeating of the volume, xover frequency and phase settings until it sounds just right.
     I believe the root cause of our disagreement over the effectiveness of 4-sub distributed bass array systems is your lack of experience and familiarity with them.

Tim 

Avanti I agree with you almost entirely. You do have to with your rooms acoustics physically but particularly when it comes to bass there are limits as to what you can achieve. You can not achieve SOTA bass without digital bass management and subwoofer control. First you have much more control over x-over frequencies and slopes. In the digital realm there is no phase shift. Then you can adjust the frequency response of the sub woofers so that they are up 3 db at 20 Hz. Tolerably sized sub woofers start rolling off at around 60 Hz and are down 6 to 9 db at 20 Hz especially if they are not closely coupled to a wall or corner.
With enough power this can be corrected with startling results. Putting on a 20 Hz tone is a riot. It sounds and feels as if it is coming from the whole house and everything buzzes and rattles. Dishes, silver ware, picture frames, the toilet and my teeth. At 60 Hz I can definitively localize the sound and the symphony of rattles stops around 40 Hz. 
Tim, the best speaker control (room control) measure each speaker independently and adjusts each speaker independently. The problem with sub woofer systems is that they ignore the satellites.     

Oh and Tim I have used subs in every configuration you care to think about and have been using 4 subwoofers for......25 years anyway.
I am glad you like your system and that it works for you. Unless you are extremely lucky your bass below 40 Hz is for certain a mess. Lord knows what it is doing up to the x-over. If you send me pictures of your room and system I would be happy to fix it for you. I am working with another forum member who has Acoustats and was unhappy with his DBA system. Of course he is use to a level of detail and imaging that you can't get out of dynamic drivers so the muddiness of a DBA system would be more offensive to him. I have not heard back from him yet but I think we have finished adjusting his system.
I don't have to use a tape measure myself. All I do is set up a microphone and tap the measure button which is displayed on my PC. If I am happy with it I tap the enable button and all the volume, delay and frequency adjustment are made in a few seconds. Then I overlay my own response curves and we are good to go. No guessing and I am not relying on anybodies hearing not even my own. There is no way I could get bass this good by playing around and depending on hearing. You can't either especially with sub woofers thrown all over the room.

noble100 says of mijostyn:

Incorrect, wrong and you're mistaken. Millercarbon absolutely knows you're wrong because he had the intelligence and cajones to give it a try.

Yup. And thanks. Finally got the Rosewood veneer on and finished. 

I believe the root cause of our disagreement over the effectiveness of 4-sub distributed bass array systems is your lack of experience and familiarity with them.

For sure. Demonstrably so. Thanks again.

Ok, DBA SWARM subs are absolutely the only way to go I wish I had the cojones to take my 200 lb subwoofers and their 2000 watt amplifiers and toss them up in the air to let them play wherever they land happily ever after. But I am an old man and to stupid and weak to lift these things never mind throwing them up in the air.
I'm sure you guys are on gluten free diets. You need to switch to now to Keto!