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Separate subs for music and HT/surround

My stereo setup is comprised of Ayre 5/20 series digital hub, preamp and amp that drive KEF Ref 1s through a passive Marchand high-pass filter. For HT and surround, LR side and rear surround from an SP3 go to NAD Class D amps that drive LS50s. The SP3 receives HDMI from an Ayre DX-5 DSD, and its front LR output goes to a balanced by-pass input of the KX-5/20. I have two Velodyne SMS-1 bass managers that provide acoustic room correction, two HGS-10 subs, and two HGS-15 subs.

Question: Should I use one SMS-1 with the two HGS-10s for stereo and the other SMS-1 with the two HGS-15s for HT and surround music? I realize there are advocates for using 4 subs, and I could daisy-chain the SMS-1s, but separating the SMS-1s seems a neat way to keep stereo separate from HT.

db
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dbphd OP
1,630 posts
 
My inclination is to separate the subs, but I was looking for arguments against that inclination.
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noble100's avatar
noble100
2,419 posts
 
Hello DB,

     Oh ye of little faith.  The goal is to use all four subs for both stereo music and HT to have near state of the art bass performance on both.  Run all four subs in mono because none of your music recordings were recorded with stereo bass below about 100 Hz anyway, they all have the bass summed to mono.  
     But don't worry, you'll perceive the bass as stereo.  Even though the fundamental bass tones below 80 Hz,  that you're not able to localize (tell where they are coming from), are reproduced in mono by the four subs,  the higher frequency harmonics or overtones of the fundamental tones that reach to frequencies above 80 Hz and are reproduced through the pair of Ref1s in stereo, are able to be localized.  Your brain does the rest by associating the harmonics or overtones to the fundamental tones and this allows you to perceive where the tones below 80 Hz are coming from within the soundstage image.
     Just trust me and give it a try, it works like a charm and you're going to love it.

Tim
     
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