There's a lot more bass in a 6.5" driver than most of you think

The one area where EQ is unquestionably needed is in the bass, below about 400-500 Hz - room modes and adjacent boundary effects. It is necessary to attenuate resonant peaks, avoiding filling narrow acoustical interference dips. With multiple subwoofers it is possible to attenuate room modes and for the EQ to benefit more than a single listener. It is not difficult, but not everybody does it. Other mistakes result from trying to "fix" non-minimum-phase ripples in steady-state room curves. EQ at mid and high frequencies should be broadband "tone control" kinds of spectral balance adjustments, but too many systems think they know better.

Well, finally we have enough nuance here to pull apart all the different discussions you’ve been conflating, @pirad. Honestly Pirad, being so well read I have to wonder what your motives are. Did you deliberately misread the Toole article you shared?

This paragraph is pretty much what I’ve been recommending, with the caveat that again, he’s not considering the use of bass traps fully. Bass traps will make those narrow sharp dips less deep, and therefore correctable. He’s talking about the exclusive use of EQ, alone. I have never suggested that as a panacea. I’ve always said that the room acoustics enable the EQ to work. And in fact, his statement here is one you’ve argued against:

The one area where EQ is unquestionably needed is in the bass, below about 400-500 Hz - room modes and adjacent boundary effects.

Yes, this is exactly my point. He’s also recommending a light hand, again, agreed to. Didn’t you try to tell us all EQ was all bad? It’s pretty interesting how you can pull out so many great articles and conveniently omit what doesn’t suit your promotion of swarms. In fact, he never says "if you use multiple subs you don’t need EQ."

Now again, in detail:

With multiple subwoofers it is possible to attenuate room modes and for the EQ to benefit more than a single listener.

Correct. He doesn’t say "you can’t do this with an EQ and bass traps" which is what you keep reading into his words. In fact that’s the whole problem. You keep reading entire phrases into his articles in a very self-serving manner. In fact, like bass traps, he’s saying that multiple subs make the EQ work better. This shoots your entire agenda of not using EQ at all completely out of the water. Wow, @pirad, you’ve basically destroyed your own arguments with Toole. Again.

My original statements, are and continue to be, one sub with bass traps and proper EQ is amazing. I know because I’ve measured and heard it. Further, good room acoustics make small speakers sound larger. They do this by controlling the resonant modes which make the bass sound flabby and boomy. So, again, the vector for the frugal audiophile who wants to limit his hardware purchases to me is clear:

Room acoustics --> Subwoofer --> DSP for EQ and integration


What you may be missing also is that DSP isn’t just about EQ. DSP also plays an important role in setting the proper crossover settings and delay, which JL Audio also points to. And, like Toole, I’ve seen and heard horrible, absolutely horrible sounding ARC. It’s gotten much better, and JL is one of the better brands. It is also FAR TOO EXPENSIVE. Really, besides the woofers, the main selling point of JL is how good they sound and how easy they are to install and have sound good.

So, given that the average audiophile is not a speaker builder, if they don’t have room for a swarm, a single sub, well placed, properly integrated to the room and speakers is really a great solution. Two is better.

The only area of contention really is how good automated systems are, and that as other acousticians have found, you can even fix unfixable dips with the right room acoustics.

And what if you don't want a sub? Again, room acoustics are where you start.

Someday I suspect, when Jesus has definitely got us for a sunbeam,
our works may be adequately assessed.

Why is base spelled like bass, the fish? I thought we were discussing some rather smallish fish.

erik_squires:"What you are missing from my argument is bass traps. I never said EQ alone solves all issues, but rather that EQ and room acoustics are complementary."


Hello Erik,
     You're correct, I should have included bass traps in my post comment and understand you recommend using EQ in conjunction with bass traps for attaining good in-room bass response from a single sub at a designated listening position.
     Although I'm currently getting excellent in-room bass response throughout my entire room using a 4-sub DBA system with zero EQ and bass traps, I recently ordered about $3,500 worth of GIK room treatments, including stacked bass traps for all 4 corners and some 51/4" thick panel bass traps for the front and rear walls. 
      I originally was dead set against bass traps because it seemed silly to deploy a high quality and fairly expensive 4-sub DBA system in my room and then buy a bunch of large, expensive and ugly bass traps to sop up the extra bass frequency energy in the same room. I felt the bass quality was already near state of the art in my room, had difficulty imaging how it could be further improved and didn't want to jinx the bass quality I'd finally attained after years of searching for a bass system that sounded so powerful, dynamic, detailed, accurate, natural and integrated so seamlessly with my large Magnepan main speakers.
     But GIK, Duke Lejeune, you and others convinced me that bass traps will only further smooth out and improve the bass quality that already exists in the room. So, I decided to trust the consistent advice of the efficacy of bass traps ang give them a go.  I'll give an update after they're installed and I listen to the results awhile. 
     I'm always looking to improve the quality of my system so, who knows, I just may give EQ a go next. I'm kind of conflicted since bass quality is my most important priority but the simplicity of functionality is a close second priority 
.

Tim

I'm not sure if this is applicable, but something I have noticed.

When my next door neighbors (several throughout the years) would play their small systems, it was quite audible in my space.  However, I've played my system, which obviously has much greater bass extension and capacity, and yet didn't hear it next door.

So obviously something in those small speaker systems was hitting a resonant frequency which was exciting the wall,  while my more spread out bass didn't.  Perhaps these systems (seemed like powered speakers) uses the resonant frequency to make bass, and higher end systems with smaller woofers don't.