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Searching for matching(?) Subwoofer solution

Hi folks,

I have a relatively new setup in my home office (12' x 14' with hardwood floor) and am seeking recommendations for a subwoofer solution.

Speakers: Ologe 5
Preamp:    Bryston P26 
Amp:         Forte 1A
Budget:     Flexible but just want something to provide a good match for the above components.
Music:       Mostly Classical and Jazz.  Some rock, some fusion.
Source:     Well, that's something else I am seeking advice on too and will post under the appropriate discussion topic

Problem is none of the local Hi Fi shops here in the Boston area have any experience with, let alone heard of Ologe speakers.  Couldn't get any recommendations there.

Has anyone owned or at least listened to these speakers? Or any of the other Ologe speakers?
The Ologe site (http://www.ologe-acoustic.com/) features a subwoofer called Ologe 20 at USD $8550.  
Just wanted to look into alternatives before dropping over 8 grand on the Ologe 20.
 I am open to but don't know much about subwoofer swarms.

I am not looking for anything overkill.  Just a subwoofer solution to nicely complement my somewhat modest home office system.

Thanks,
H
hleeid
audiokinesis
2,753 posts
 

Audiorusty asked:

"A question for the DBA folks; How do you get the mids and highs to spread out evenly through the room to match up with the bass at all locations in the room? Also does a DBA affect impact?"

The bass doesn’t sound like it’s coming from everywhere. The bass sounds like it’s coming from wherever the bass instruments are in the soundstage. We get our localization cues from the higher frequencies that the main speakers produce.

In my experience impact is improved with a good distributed multi-sub system. This is because smooth bass is "fast" bass. We hear peaks as "slow bass" or "boomy bass", and we hear dips as "weak bass" or "lack of impact". (Dips are usually less objectionable than peaks.)

Our natural instinct is to think that having multiple arrival times from the various subs degrades the bass impact, but that’s not what happens. The ear DOES NOT EVEN DETECT the presence of bass energy from less than one full wavelength, and bass wavelengths are many feet long. So by the time we even begin to detect the presence of bass energy, the bass has already reflected off of room surfaces multiple times. We do not hear a "first arrival sound" in the low bass region because by the time we hear the bass, we are already hearing the room’s effects. But what happens to the trailing edge of the notes (how quickly and smoothly they decay) is very important to the sense of impact, and this is where a good distributed multisub system excels.

To put it another way, we cannot hear bass apart from the room’s (detrimental) effects, so we might as well take the room into account. By spreading multiple bass sources around the room, one might say that we get the room to work "with us" somewhat instead of "against us".

Last year at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest we got a nice compliment from an extremely competent cable manufacturer with decades of audio show experience. He asked us to play his reference recording of "Fanfare for the Common Man". He said ours was the most natural reproduction of that recording he had heard at a show, and in particular he said "THAT is what a tympani sounds like - THAT is what I hear at the symphony".

Duke

audiokinesis
2,753 posts
 

@noble100 wrote:

"Are you making a distinction between the perceived true stereo bass that I'm currently experiencing and your mention of "a second amp can be added to give you true stereo bass"?" 

IF the recording has true stereo bass, adding the second amp would allow you to reproduce left and right channel bass separately, instead of summed.   That's a big IF. 


"On several other threads no one, including myself, was able to name a single recording on any format containing true stereo bass. Are you aware of any?"

I don't own any, but my understanding is that Ralph Karsten has said the vinyl recordings he makes have stereo separation all the way down.  And I believe him!  

Duke

Ag insider logo xs@2x
rauliruegas
13,112 posts
 
Dear @audiokinesis : " I agree ".

I don’t know from where you take that " I agree ". I think that you can make some tests with two of your subwoofers crossed at 30hz and with different SPL on each test. Position at a normal one seat position and play music ( digital or analog ) with very low bass recorded information and then through several tests/evaluations lest us know if you can or can’t detect from where comes the sound you are listening.

Tests using first one subs at a time and then the same with the other and you can follow with both at the same time. Main speakers off(no sound.).

I already dit it and I think that only true personal tests we can have an answer. Every one with subs can do it. Please don’t ask my conclusions, we have to make our work/job.

R.

Btw, this is what I posted here about mono/stereo:


"""   Atmasphere that has first hand experiences on the overall recording proccess posted in other thread what oput true ligth on that mono/stereo subs issue:

""" Its not so much the limitations of the format as it costs a lot of money to pay an engineer to work a way around "out of phase bass". If you spend the time with the recording, you can usually find a way to master it without having to process it. But that takes time and at $500/hour most often bass processing is used. This is a simple circuit that senses when bass is out of phase and makes it mono below about 80Hz for a few milliseconds until the event has passed. This makes mastering LPs less expensive!
But CDs do exist where out of phase bass exists. This can happen because a microphone is out of phase with the rest of the recording when a bass guitar or bass drum is recorded. For this reason, the recording engineer has a phase inversion switch on every channel of his mixer but he may not have thought to use them.

If the recording is done in its entirety with only two mics, out of phase bass will not exist. """
audiokinesis
2,753 posts
 
@rauliruegas wrote:
"Position at a normal one seat position and play music ( digital or analog ) with very low bass recorded information and then through several tests/evaluations lest us know if you can or can’t detect from where comes the sound you are listening... Main speakers off(no sound.)."  

Well of course under those conditions (playing music through the subs with the main speakers OFF) you can hear where the subs are! This is because the lowpass filter on the subs are not brick walls.

But with the main speakers on, the output of the mains will be so much louder than the output of the subs that it will effectively mask the location of the subs, even if the subs are letting a little bit of upper bass/lower energy leak through.

The point is not whether there is an unrealistic test condition in which a distrubuted multisub system falls short. The point is, how does it perform when used under normal conditions?

Duke



noble100's avatar
noble100
2,419 posts
 
audiokinesis:
"The point is not whether there is an unrealistic test condition in which a distrubuted multisub system falls short. The point is, how does it perform when used under normal conditions?

Duke"
Hello Duke,

     Yes, I believe that's the goal of most of us if not all of us: 
"How does it perform when used under normal conditions?"

Rauliruegas,

     As I've stated, the AK Swarm/Debra 4-sub DBA system performs exceptionally well in my 23'x16'x8' room and seamlessly integrates with my fast and detailed Magnepan main speakers (which for years have been infamous for being difficult to integrate well with conventional subs) for both 2-ch music and HT.  
     My main concern is music and I don't think I can overstate how well it performs on all of my CDs and it performs even better on my high-resolution 24bit/96KHz direct to digital FLAC music files.  
     This combination transports me to a fairly wide and deep 3D soundstage in my living room of the musicians and the recording venue, usually jazz or blues in a small club or Sound Liason's larger European direct to digital recording studio,  that's ultra-realist sound quality, I believe, can be largely attributed to the bass quality, impact and dynamics that's normally only experienced with music heard live and in person.  Thank you, Duke.
     I consider this state of the art bass performance but I understand that similar results can be achieved at a single dedicated listening position utilizing two high quality subs that are properly positioned and configured, like the approach you chose.  Here's a link to a Todd Welti, of Harman International, that confirms this:

https://www.harman.com/sites/default/files/multsubs_0.pdf

Later,
Tim  
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