Are big subwoofers viable for 2 channel music?

luisma31-

And again I'm not trying to promote my subs, PSA, rhytmik, excellent gear which I respect, but (again) quantity (4 or more) and ability to integrate them is more important than the actual brand. 

millercarbon, first post-

With subs it is not a question of which. It is a question of how many.

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
luisma31 again-

Miller's 1st reply was right on target 

luisma31-

Just that Duke of Audiokinesis if I'm not mistaken was the 1st "commercially" to approach the array, the concept and theory comes from Geddes I believe? 

Not sure he was the first, or even if he is the most prolific supporter, but around here he may as well be. 

The distributed bass array concept is not new. It has been around a couple decades now. Probably was Geddes who "discovered" it. As with so many things on this subject Duke has nailed the many reasons why so important a revolution in audio has yet to gain much traction with the masses.

DBA doesn't fit the standard bigger/newer/more powerful marketing mantra. DBA doesn't provide any advantage to any particular manufacturer or design. DBA doesn't help sell at all, because think about it, what manufacturer is gonna come out and say woweee! Our sub is so good you need four of them! Right. DBA is hard to understand. There's guys here had it explained to em a hundred times now, still don't get it.

The one thing DBA has going for it is, it actually works. 

Been just over a year now that I've had mine. A lot of research was done first. One of the bigger surprises was yes, this guy Geddes, figured this out as part of a Phd dissertation. Painstakingly measured and mapped out bass response in a whole bunch of room with a whole bunch of speakers. Took the raw data, applied the physics, figured it out. Genius! The physics of DBA is rock solid. 

At one point in the planning stages of my DBA project Duke thanked me for having the faith to do this. But as I told him then there was no faith involved. It is a matter of pure logic. This is the most rock-solid speaker project a guy could ever hope to find. There simply is no way of screwing it up. You build four, or more, and it just works. Its only when you try and do it with one or two that you have problems. Impossible, insurmountable problems. 

Literally impossible. Yet even now there are those who persist in pushing the same flawed paradigm that always and everywhere leads only to failure. 

With subs its not a question of which. Its a question of how many.

Its not often a doctoral thesis can be boiled down to something so simple. But there you go. Thank you, Dr Geddes!

+1

@smodtactical --

Are big subwoofers viable for 2 channel music?

Unequivocally, yes. In fact, when practically feasible and without obstructing acoustics (and I’d go to great lengths to challenge named obstacles here), I’d much rather go with 2 big subs vs. 2 smaller ones to maximize and accommodate BOTH music and movie duties. Should you go quad-style immediately or eventually, not least with a room as big as yours, don’t settle for 4 smaller subs (i.e.: anything below 15"), because while they can make quite a load of noise, very clean bass even to a point, you simply won’t achieve the headroom desired, indeed mandatory if you want truly clean, effortless and relaxed bass at any SPL. "Enough" simply won’t cut it (it’s a severe "hifi"-disease to neglect the importance of headroom); much more than enough is what’s called for, be that 2 or 4 big subs, and once you hear/feel it, you’ll know why.

Luckily, headroom where bass goes isn’t as much about price as it is size (in addition to numbers). Offerings from JL Audio’s Fathom series, great as it may be, are simply overpriced, and yet the likes of Robert Harley would love to tell you that the Fathoms are exactly what big(ger) bass is about; that price necessarily follows size into the stratosphere. He is however, and sorry to put this bluntly, dead wrong and misleading here in his stuck-up high-end approach. Quality design, high efficiency, big size and proper implementation IS high-end bass reproduction, and it doesn’t require a minimum of 2" thick cabinet walls, luxury finishing, weighing half a ton and costing even more to get you there.

As I’ve stated previously: price isn’t the real issue here, size is, and by that I mean people are more willing to pony up the big dough for a smaller, more high-end looking product than going for the bigger, cheaper and more "unassuming" variant. Audiophilia will tell you it’s PA or home theater earmarked, not "hifi," and claim big size is just a bad, Mr. Simple Joe excuse to have bragging rights about exactly that: big size and SPL capabilities. Accommodating physics however, these are core parameters in the pursuit of great bass.

luisma31:
"It is funny you said "they sound" the beauty of bass in my system is I forget about the subs, I don’t tweak them, they are part of the room’s furniture, I totally forget these exist, I don’t "hear them". The only time I realize they are there is when I play rock and my wife starts screaming because candles and ornaments she put on top of the subs start falling off, otherwise to me they don’t sound."


Hello luisma31,

You’re mixing up 2 different factors when properly incorporating subs into an audio system: seamless integration of the subs and the sound quality of the subs.
Yes, seamless integration of the subs requires they only become active when the source material demands the reproduction of bass frequencies at or below the selected cutoff frequency. This requires a good knowledge of one’s main speakers’ bass extension performance and a bit of experimentation with the sub’s volume and cutoff frequency controls to augment the bass optimally.
I’ve found that a good guideline, for good integration between subs and the main speakers, is to try and set the volume and crossover frequency as low as possible with the bass still sounding powerful, smooth, fast, detailed, dynamic and natural when activated. I’ve also found that a pair of subs allows the bass to integrate with the main speakers about twice as well as a single sub. Four subs, positioned in a distributed bass array configuration, will integrate about twice as well as a pair of subs and integrate seamlessly with virtually any pair of main speakers and in any room. Eight subs, positioned in a distributed bass configuration in a room, are solid grounds for divorce in most states.
However, seamless integration between subs and main speakers is only one factor in achieving good in-room bass performance, the other is the sound quality performance of the subs. Just like main speakers, the sound quality of subs varies. Fortunately though, there are numerous low distortion, good quality subs that reproduce high sound quality bass sound waves.
To further complicate matters and just like the woofers on main speakers with deep bass extension, it’s not sufficient that subs launch high quality bass sound waves into the room. These high quality bass sound waves must arrive at the listening seat in the same condition for the bass to be perceived as high quality.
In general, the bass is the hardest part of the audible audio spectrum to get right in most systems and rooms. This is primarily due to the fact that bass sound waves are very long and omnidirectional which behave much differently than the much shorter and directional midrange and treble sound waves in typical, domestic-size rooms.
I’ll spare all the details right now, but this means that the woofer positions within the room launching bass soundwaves, whether within main speakers or subs, must be precisely positioned in the room to guarantee these sound waves arrive at the listening position unaltered so that the bass is perceived as high quality, with no bass peaks, dips or nulls perceived.
Given these facts, it’s easy to realize that achieving high sound quality bass at one’s listening position is much more difficult using main speakers with deep bass extension, that are normally positioned within the room to optimize midrange, treble and imaging performance and not bass performance, than using separate, independently positioned subs are capable of achieving. Also, bass integration and sound quality are both improved as more independently positioned subs are added to the room, with the majority of bass sound quality benefits attained through the presence of 4 subs.
The above is why I decided to treat my system as 2 systems, a bass system that I optimize by using a 4-sub Audio Kinesis distributed bass array system and a midrange/treble/imaging system that I optimize by using a pair of Magnepan 3.7i main speakers. Overall, this results in a high quality and full-range audio system that I really enjoy.


Tim

Thank you Tim for adding details