Subwoofers - Front Firing or Down Firing - Which Sounds Best?

Here you go:

http://usr.audioasylum.com/images/0/4120/Me___HQD.jpg

Get yourself a couple of Hartley 24" subs and you will have all the bass you need, I would guess...

Cheers!

(Full disclosure:  We made some cabs for these back in the day..not the ones in the pics.  Ours were about 5.5' high and weighed in about about 200 lbs each...they were tanks!)

I like the design of the REL subwoofers.  Rythmik would also be another option.  However, no dealers carry them to listen to them.

I know the experts say it ain't so but my old mirage with 2 opposite side firing woofers does a really good job without needing any room correction software. That said I needed a sub to double as an end table in the family room and bought an entry level paradigm 15" with arc that doesn't draw to much attention to itself.

I know the experts say it ain’t so but my old mirage with 2 opposite side firing woofers does a really good job without needing any room correction software.

I’m no expert, but I’ve also never felt this was a must. Rooms vary, and subs vary in how deep they go, as does placement, and choices of material to play. I’ve lived in one apartment where EQ was 100% necessary due to a 20 dB peak in the 25-30 Hz range. 20 dB!! In this apartment with an open layout, and bass traps I only need to do modest adjustments.

Room acoustics, equalization, and placement are good tools to have handy when this doesn’t work out. Far better than attempting to fix problems with power cables or cycling through subwoofers.  Also, the one thing almost all automated tools do very well is set up the crossover points and delay/phase matching. That's a real tough one for many.

Best,
E

noromance: I know you have a lot of concrete in your rack. But if it's sitting on bouncy floors, what then?

Well what then is mass equals inertia. That much mass simply cannot be moved very fast without a great deal of energy. Way more energy than a bouncy floor. That much mass can only be moved slowly. The effect of massive concrete and damping sand combines to drive all energy into a very low fundamental resonance frequency range. You can see this in action. Stamping or jumping on the floor does move the rack. But it moves very slowly, and very subsonic, around a few Hz.

The response of this massive rack on a suspended wood floor is actually better than a lightweight rack on a solid concrete floor. Because the lightweight rack is subject to vibrate from acoustic energy. Also I lived for years on concrete enough to know even concrete slab can still move and if it does the lightweight rack will transmit that energy right up to the table. A massive rack will absorb and dissipate that energy into its mass.

So that's what then.
btw, I never have recommended "using any old subs". What I have said is they don't need to match, and more is better than few. Which is true.