Searching for matching(?) Subwoofer solution

Apologies to all! I didn't mean to stir up so much drama!

But I sincerely appreciate so many of you responding to my query.  This is still an exciting journey for me. I have enjoyed and learned quite a lot each of your postings.

So I have decided to empty my office, place my main speakers and perhaps two woofers, experiment with placement, acoustical room treatments, etc.

Looks like my next homework assignment will be researching the various subwoofer configurations (forward firing, down firing, vented, ported, sealed, anything I missed?)   
  
Should I take advantage of the temporarily empty office to lay down carpeting?

I will try to "furnish around" the speakers and then experiment again.

Many thanks!!

Hans

@hleeid'

'Should I take advantage of the temporarily empty office to lay down carpeting?'

My buddies that have man caves and and not only use their system for playing music but watching movies too - swear by adding carpet.   

Up until some time nearly a year ago I had never heard of using more than one or two subs. All my personal experience was based on one sub, plus maybe once or twice hearing two somewhere. Based on all that it seemed getting really good smooth articulate bass, by which I mean bass every bit as good as the midrange and treble, was for whatever reason impossible.

I still think this is the case. My current understanding is the reason this is impossible is, briefly, what Duke stated above. Its a natural physical consequence of the physical character of house-sized rooms. 

The DBA idea seemed at first unlikely to work. But a lot of the threads I came across were like this one, where if you could somehow wade through the BS and sniping there were mentioned real research articles and work by guys like Geddes, which anyone interested can scroll up and see yes indeed once again he's mentioned. The question is will you dear reader take time out of your busy day opining and parroting and go and look it up and read it and actually try and understand what its all about.

Which I did. Which whatever it is, it sure ain't religion. 

Duke at one point when I said I was going to do this he thanked me for having faith. My reply was I had read enough and understood enough to know for certain and without doubt its going to work. This really is no different than someone teaches you math. You can then determine how many oranges each of 6 people can get if you have 24 oranges. Its not faith and it sure ain't religion. Its physics.

And psycho-acoustics. Humans do not perceive sounds anything like the meters so many wanna-be audiophiles put so much faith in. Which yes that is exactly the correct use of the term. Or maybe like Stevie Wonder said its superstition- when you believe in things you don't understand.

We don't perceive volume equally flat, go look up Fletcher-Munson curve. We don't perceive location equally with frequency either. We are really good at localizing midrange and treble. We can hear even just a millisecond snippet. At low bass frequencies we can't even hear them AT ALL until and unless its a full wavelength. At 20 Hz that means 1/20th of a second. 

The full range of sounds we are trying to create is so different in physics and perception it simply cannot be faithfully recreated with just the one approach. No two speakers can do it. No two speakers with any sub however good can do it. Two good speakers with four or more subs? No problem!

I've been using mine for a good six months now. One of the most amazing things I am still getting used to is the way really low powerful bass can present so many different ways. Sometimes its the low acoustic of the recording venue. In that case its so diffuse as to be completely unlocalizable. It is enveloping. It is what people mean when they talk about good bass expanding the sound stage to completely envelope you. Other times it is so precisely localized within the sound stage its every bit as palpably solidly there as the singer or drum or whatever. 

Never, ever, does it sound like the bass is coming from any of the five subs in my room. Often times early on I would walk right up to one and not believe it was even working until I put my finger on the driver.

There's a lot going on here that is very new and very different. Its a lot to get your head around. People interested will be well served to avoid the silly comments from people who haven't tried it and therefore haven't a clue, and instead read those who have and those who did the very impressive pioneering research that made this most revolutionary discovery in audio in many years.

Hello Duke,

     I'm glad you chimed in and shared your knowledge. 
     If you don't mind and have the time, I was hoping to get your honest opinion on my thoughts on how I understand multiple sub systems function in general as well as my understanding of how bass is recorded on CDs and vinyl.  Basically, I'm asking if you agree with my summary below?    
     
       We all are unable to localize deep bass frequency soundwaves, that is determine where the sound is coming from, that are below about 100 Hz but we're very good at localizing higher frequency soundwaves in the remainder of the audible spectrum, from about 100 to 20,000 Hz.
    This is the reason there's no such thing as 'true stereo' deep bass and why the bass is summed to mono on frequencies below 100 Hz on all vinyl and cd recordings. If you doubt this, try to find a single vinyl or cd recording that is not summed to mono. This means it's pointless to configure subs in a stereo configuration with one located by the left main speaker and one by the right.
    However, thanks to psychoacoustics and our remarkable brains, it is possible to create the perception of stereo bass in our systems. Here's how it works:
    Whether you use 2, 3 or 4 subs, run them in mono and optimize the bass at your listening seat. The bass below 100 Hz won't be able to be localized but there are bass harmonics or overtones of the deep bass fundamental frequencies that extend into higher frequencies that are reproduced by the main stereo speakers and can be localized. Our brains are able to associate the fundamental deep bass frequencies reproduced by the subs, that are not able to be localized, with the deep bass's higher harmonic frequencies, that extend well beyond 100 Hz, which are reproduced by the main speakers that are able to be localized. This psychoacoustic association allows us to localize the deep bass in the soundstage, for example the kick drum is located in the rear center and the upright bass is located in the front to the left, which would not be otherwise possible without this psychoacoustic association our brain's are capable of.  


Thanks,
Tim