Are big subwoofers viable for 2 channel music?

Hi Tim:
Thank you for the kind words, I'm trying to learn and as you stated Duke and Jim are a good source of unbiased data, they of course are in the business but they provide good advise even if sometimes goes against the actual product they are selling, this is something you don't find today commonly. If you learn how to filter BS here in Audiogon most of the time you can learn a few things too, there is a lot of people (like you which I follow your comments) that have knowledge and try to share such as well.
Yeah we have kind of the same settings, if our rooms were bigger (I guess yours is medium size room  like mine) maybe we will go higher on the gain settings to fill it but the "bass perception" I get is just perfect. I say perfection because I tried and can't barely hear anything below 40 Hz.
I thought on using the GIK but I have other priorities to improve my system which I think will be more relevant than a subtle change on room treatment.
In addition to this Duke's speakers take advantage of late reflections to improve the mid/high perception so room treatment, flat response filters etc. will kind of flatten / remove this and I just don't want that.
This is OT of course but among all the music I like is classical and instrumental violins, piano, cello etc. and even opera.
When I travel I love to go (especially in Europe) to live venues which are very inexpensive, one of my favorite venues are church concerts, usually these are $10 - $20 per seat typically (even in Paris, Prague etc which some concerts are even free) and you can do even two events the same day, you perceive the music coming directly from the instruments and also these churches high tall vaulted ceilings and walls provide all sort of reflections. If one could go into the venue with a microphone and a FR software and computer I'm pretty sure the FR curve will be all over the place, not flat at all, does that prevent us from enjoying live music? not at all and that brings me to the topic of perfect flat response, is it really that critical? I don't want to spoil this thread with anything else but the close to perfect FR of the bass using the Swarm by wave overlapping it is just brilliant, too bad physics won't allow for the same with all the other frequencies.

To smodtactical,

Imo the sheer size of your large listening space bodes well for bass reproduction. Arguably what the Swarm does in a smaller room is, approximate the in-room response that we’d get with fewer subs in a much larger room. I do think your square footprint makes asymmetrical sub placement worth a shot, and you may well get very good results with only two big subs. As an alternative to asymmetrical, particularly if your two subs have phase controls, I suggest center of the left and right walls, and then dial in 90 degrees of phase difference between the two subs.

Despite the fact that I use four relatively "small" subs, I do not subscribe to the school of thought that says small woofers are "faster". What we perceive as "speed" in the bass region is directly related to the in-room frequency response curve. To the extent that small woofers tend to have less low bass they may be perceived as "faster", but that’s not a direct result of the cone diameter in and of itself.

I do not have first-hand experience with very many of my competitor’s subs, but ime the Rhythmiks are very good. A pair of big Rhythmiks in your big room would be hard to beat.

Duke

Outstanding room and rig indeed

Thank you, it is actually a lazy rig, I have several problems, one is the wife doesn't want dual racks so I can put my turntable in, another one is the wife won't allow a fixed coach / chair on the sweet spot, so I have to listen from the side or move every time a chair to the sweet spot to listen. The other one is her decorations are on the way kind of blocking direct hearing. So is either these conditions or we divorce. Eventually I will get a separate room just for my stuff, we'll see

@smodtactical, I have been using two JL F212 in my 2 channel system fro the last 7 years. Last year I decided to add two more subs to attain a 4 subwoofer array. So instead of getting two more JL subs, I bought two BIG subwoofers from Funk Audio 21.0LX. I tried to integrate the four subwoofers to my 2 channel music but finally the BEST integration if just the two BIG subs. Now the JL F212 is used for HT. The bass quality from the 21.0LX is so well control and fast. the tonal texture is awesome. I am super happy that I go for the BIG subs, may be the 24 inch subs in the next upgrade.

Hi tyray,

There’s just one caveat, My subs do not have phase (switchable or continuously variable). My PSA subs have 2 pots for:

Time Delay from 0ms to 16ms and
Room Size from small to large

In your case the time delay pot is your phase control.

I do not know what the room size pot controls. I will try to find out and get back to you.

What other controls does your PSA have?