2. speakers
  3. 152849-20253

The order of getting more/better bass

Say you have a nice 2-way speaker system. Maybe you are starting in your hobby, and maybe you have decided the bottom octaves are a place to improve.  What next? Here's my perspective as a long term audiophile and DIY speaker builder and tinkerer who has lived with and tried a number of solutions.

To be clear: 2 way speakers are generally lot easier to live with than conventional 3-way speakers.  Why? The lack of bass makes them more room friendly and unlikely to cause issues.

So, what should you do? In general, I suggest before moving onto bigger speakers to go through this list:

1 - Get good room treatment, especially bass traps. This doesn't always work, but I have found that often flattening the bass makes smaller speakers sound a lot larger. You may be done here.

2 - Add a subwoofer with great EQ.

And here is where your options kind of explode. The EQ can be before the DAC (miniDSP), built into your pre/integrated (Anthem/Lyngdorf/T+A/etc.) or subwoofer only.  Sometimes this is even part of the speaker with Vandersteen and others offering powered subs with built in EQ as part of the speaker.

To me, the difference here is how much control you want over your DAC and the purity of the signal. A sub only EQ is limited in how much it can fix as well as how much it can break.

I want to point out that not all room correction/auto EQ is the same. It is critically important you audition before purchasing, as ultimately the choices made, and target curves, are not at all equivalent.

3 - Add a second (or more) subwoofer

This is of course great if you lack output, but to actually fix issues you have to have a great deal of flexibility in how you place the subs. If your sub is loud and deep, but you have no control over where they go they will not help you compensate for each other. 
Properly set up/calibrated a satellite/subwoofer set up is glorious. In 90% of living rooms I'd put a good 2way/sub combo up against almost any large floor stander and beat them. However, honestly, the proper set up part is a lot harder than it sounds.

What are your tips for the starter audiophile who wants to improve the bottom end?

Best,

Erik
erik_squires
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
There are no shortcuts to high quality sound. If you want high quality, you will need a custom built room with custom tuned speakers and every bass note should be perfect. 
There is no such thing as improving the bottom end. Either its perfect or its not. 
newbee
4,767 posts
 
Placing your chair in a bass node helps a lot if you just want 'more' bass. :-)
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,842 posts
 
Use a great amp to get the most out of your speakers. You’d be surprised at how much bass you can get out of your speakers that you didn’t think possible. It will sound deeper, tighter and more coherent.

Add in room size and acoustics and you may not need a subwoofer at all.

All the best,
Nonoise
erik_squires OP
16,059 posts
 
Nonoise you aren't wrong, but I'm going to argue that without reasonably good room acoustics you won't know it.

It is a lot easier to discern the quality of an amp and the benefit of the amp/speaker match up afterwards.

Still, your point that amps matter in bass is well taken.
andy2
1,551 posts
 
A ported bass reflex speaker usually does not have the bass control vs. for example transmission line speakers.  Sometimes it's the room fault but it could be how the speaker controls the bass.  

Regardless, having two sub, one for each channel is probably preferable vs. only one sub, but of course along with the cost.  Depends on any given sub, the sub also plays some high frequencies and those are not omni-directional, therefore having two sub can help getting a good soundstage image.  
More to discover