The bass is the place...

Regarding multi-source bass reproduction, until I recently had to downsize my music-oriented multi-channel system featured five Thiel 3.5's with equalized bass down to 22hz.  No sign of room nodes, and with that many Thiel speakers, no power/sound level limitations even with the loudest of DVD movies.

hi there, im new to audiogon, and to hifi as well : ) - I think I got lucky my very first time in getting the system to disappear, using a psaudio transport and ds DAC, Cary 300SEi amp, relatively cheap biwires and Larsen 6.2 speakers. My listening space is an undedicated lounge and tv area, open on one side with speakers set up on the long wall, usually closed on the other with timber framed glass folding doors, and with a back wall of a sturdy timber and glass cabinet eleven feet from the front brick wall. The ceiling is nine feet high, my speakers are eight feet apart and my general listening area about eight feet as well. With an amp of 15wpc, biwire cables, and lowish sensitivity speakers, my system shouldn’t work, but it does. Vendors dropping by usually look round for a subwoofer, and tell me the frequencies are well balanced, and the bass is unbelievable for what Is feeding it.  I suspect it has to do in part with the ss rectifier output of the amp, and in greater part with the Larsen speakers using the front wall as a resonater, as they are placed barely an inch up against the wall. I don’t turn up my volume past 79db.

Might be useful to define what I consider to be accurate bass. That is the sound of a bass drum or stand up bass that can be heard in the listeners room with the ability to fool the listener into believing that the ’real un-amplified’ instrument is palatably in the room.
At a HiFi show I attended last year, i had a ’conversation’ with a well known speaker designer ( whose speakers are highly colored, IME) about the subject of bass reproduction. The designer was telling all in his room that his speakers were able to plumb the depths in the bass and with absolute accuracy and that this system was producing amazing bass in this room. To my ears, this was absolutely not the case. I felt his speakers were colored and diffuse in the very bottom end and that they were not that far reaching in the bass either. ( the speakers in question were quite pricey). This conversation didn’t sit well with the designer, as he knew that he was asking a lot of money for a product that had to impress in its all-around SQ for its price point. Leaving bass production/reach and accuracy behind would not let him delineate his product from numerous other speakers that were priced considerably less.

@atmasphere : I fully agree with you that multiple subs are the way to go. They smooth out room response that can not be achieved with EQ. What I disagree with is your comment that 'most rooms have standing waves' and 'bass traps work poorly'
All rooms have standing waves regardless of size and shape.

Now lets suppose we have a swarm of subs that has been optimally installed in a room and we are now left with a nice smooth response, verified by both ear and measurement.  The swarm alone will improve the sound in the room in an unmistakable and impressive way that most people can not conceptualise.

But what about the time this nice smooth response takes to decay? If outdoors its a different story, however we are in a room of finite dimensions and if there is nothing in the room to absorb some of this bass there is an effect on the whole spectrum. If the T60 ( the time the sound takes to decay by 60dB) is longer than about 400ms, depending on size of room, then we will hear smearing or congestion obscuring detail.

A 'swarm'/ DBA  and real bass traps will astonish all but the truly enlightened. I say real bass traps because dinky little pieces of foam do nothing. So to address your comment about bass traps working poorly, well anything poorly designed, implemented or used will be poor. They are however indispensable for optimised sound.

The fact is: the best place to position bass drivers in a room is not conducive to creating a believable soundstage or clear images and the best position for imaging etc. is unlikely to be good for bass. So IMHO it is folly to buy hugely expensive monster speakers that can never do it all.

Many manufacturers have a speaker range with a model or two below their megabuck flagship that uses the same mid and tweet in a smaller cabinet with smaller bass driver/s. If possible high-pass this model at about 60 to 80Hz for even cleaner performance. Then swarm the room, trap the room, stir well and enjoy

@lemonhaze +1