What percentage of audiophiles use a sub ?

Personally, I have yet to hear a sub that sounds anything like live, unamplified acoustic music. For me, they are for movies or electronically produced music.

Done right a sub adds the bottom kick you experience in a live performance. I listen to progressive jazz like Yellowjackets etc. The speakers I use are full range but they don't quite do it.

Byron

The only way to get real feel in the music is to use subs...... But not the boomy flabby type. A good sub(or2) will effortlessly fill in the lower bass regions, give dynamics and scale but without blowing your ears out.

This takes time, the right equipment and set up..... Something the average user doesn't do

to relieve the main speakers of deep bass cone movement means they can do the other areas a bit faster/tighter in general.

This of course depends on the main speakers.

I use 2 subs, sometimes turned on. Other times they are off. One thing that significantly improved integration of the subs in my system was to forget about using rca cable connections from preamp to subs. I instead use speaker level connections from amplifier to subs now. This was the biggest improvement I've experienced in subwoofer performance.

Good responses from both sides so far. I use a sub with my speakers and do not experience any integration problems. I read that a pair of stereo subs are the minimum recommended for a stereo system but I am getting pretty good results using only 1 sub.