The bass is the place...

I I agree. My dealer has a pair of full range persona 7f set up to sound magnificent yet when he supplements the bass with a sub the soundstage opens up even more and while the bass probably measures +10db more sounds better. Getting that elusive room lock can really compensate for other shortcomings in a system. Generally speaking 

Getting bass right means you need to have the bass emanate (in most rooms) from several locations at once. This is because most rooms have standing waves forming at bass frequencies, and no amount of power to correct a resulting deficiency at a certain frequency at the listening chair can fix it- the more power you put in the standing wave, it just cancels using the same power.

This is why room correction and bass traps work poorly at best. But if you have multiple bass sources (IOW a Distributed Bass Array) then the standing wave can be broken up, resulting in evenly distributed bass throughout the entire room. It is obvious this is the more elegant approach.


So its really not all that advantageous to have a speaker that plumbs the the bottom octaves if that output isn't heard and felt at the listening chair! If the bass modules don't go above 80Hz they won't attract attention to themselves as generally speaking, bass is omnidirectional to the human ear below about 80Hz. So in most rooms if you want to do it right, a speaker that goes down to just below 80Hz can do the job nicely if supported by 4 asymmetrically placed subs  (two being in the front).


If you have one sub, or just two, it will be seen that their ideal location probably isn't the same as where the main speakers have to be (as mentioned earlier). But if you have main speakers that do make it into the deep bass regions, you might only need 2 extra subs placed along the sides or in back to break up the standing waves. That is how I'm doing it at my house, since my main speakers go to 20Hz. If I had it to do over though, I'd get a set of Swarms from Audiokinesis and just have a much smaller set of main speakers in front. But I like my Classic Audio Loudspeakers- they are some of the best speakers made.

So, we are left with, at least IMHO, most speakers that really cannot produce accurate and extended bass with any real precision. Your thoughts? Why is the bass the place?
Correct. You have a good handle on the situation. For years and years all we could do was pay up big time trying to get good bass.

Turns out the reason its so expensive is we were taking the wrong approach. Turns out its impossible to achieve genuinely good bass response with only two speakers. Any two speakers. No matter how big. No matter how powerful. No matter how expensive. Cannot be done.

Not with that outdated approach anyway. Change to the method that works however and it becomes trivially easy. Incredibly easy. Affordably easy.

The solution is to not hardly even consider bass response with the stereo pair. Mid-bass on up is all that matters. Sure if they put out good deep bass that is always a plus. But its a very low priority. Because that’s not how its done.

The solution for bass as everyone now knows is called a Distributed Bass Array or DBA or what Audiokinesis calls a Swarm. A system of four or more subs distributed asymmetrically around the room.

With a DBA suddenly truly deep, powerful, smooth, and articulate bass is super easy to achieve. The subs don’t have to be that big or powerful because there’s so many. Placement is easier and more forgiving. And the cost is reasonable, roughly $3k for true state of the art bass.

The biggest obstacle is that while the physics and acoustics behind DBA is compelling hardly anyone has heard one. So everyone assumes more subs is just more of what they know. Its not. Its so much different its a whole new ball game. Its so much better you would not believe.

Read the reviews. There’s people with every kind of speaker including even ESLs and we all find DBA integrates seamlessly creating a wonderfully integrated enveloping sound field that actually somehow even improves clarity and palpability in the upper registers.

As to why the stereo pair cannot do it, its physics. As to the solution, you now have it. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McN2AygDMtQ&t=1128s

Simple physics.  Ever tried to fit six double-bass players into your living room, along with everything else that's already there?  By analogy, speaker designers are trying to do the same thing with speakers.

Because :  Room.

The lower speakers go, the more monsters they wake.