Is Sub Gain Set&Forget Across Music Genres a Fallacy?

I was just wondering if it is even possible to reach that level of simplicity and ease with one (ideally for me) or more subs after the initial calibration

@kren0006   Of course is possible! The sub settings have nothing whatsoever to do with musical genres!  In fact there's not even a way to design a speaker to favor a certain genre either (and the idea that speakers do that is a myth, although one of the biggest myths in audio).

Hey!  Reason for optimism!  Thanks atmasphere!  I need some work on placement, calibration, and room treatment but I'll keep trying to get there with one sub for now.

The first room treatment overture did not go over too well...."they look like office cubicle walls" was the response I got from her....

Gotta wait a couple months and then try to strike again.  It's all good though -

After dialing in the powered subs on my Spatial X3s, I haven't touched a thing. Tight, tuneful and room filling bass is what I get. Sure, some recordings have more, some less. But it's never boomy or out of control. I just live with what's on the recording. Once you find a speaker (or sub) that does a good job with bass, most recordings are pretty happy with one setting.

Oz

     I also utilize 4 subs in a DBA/swarm configuration, with a pair of Magnepan 3.7i speakers run full range. I use my system for both stereo music and 5.4 HT surround sound audio and it performs extremely well on both as ’set and forget’ with a crossover setting of 40 Hz and a volume level of a touch under 50%.
     I know for certain, through prior and extensive personal experience, that it’s virtually impossible to attain an in-room bass performance quality level anywhere near the extremely high level that a 4-sub DBA system produces from utilizing only a single sub. However, utilizing 2 subs results in a significant performance improvement than a single sub, especially at a single designated listening position, and using 3 subs can sometimes even perform close to the optimal level of 4 subs in some rooms.
     From my perspective, I don’t consider this a matter of opinion but rather a matter of physics and room acoustics that has been proven and verified sufficiently, utilizing the empirical scientific method, to currently be qualified as an accepted fact.
     If you’re adamant on using only a single sub, I think your best solution is to first locate it optimally in the room using the ’sub crawl method’ to avoid obvious standing waves at your listening seat, then run any room correction program the sub has. The final steps would consist of listening to as many different musical genres and tracks as feasible while making adjustments to the crossover frequency and level controls until each track sounds best to you. If you record both settings on enough tracks and genres and weight the genres you listen to the most more heavily, you should be able to plot and determine a useful average weighted setting for each control.
     Of course, this won’t be ideal and is a bit of a compromise but it should be a serviceable solution until you’re ready to join the big leagues of in-room bass performance and utilize 3-4 subs in your systems.
     You should also be aware, however, that even 2 subs will provide an obviously noticeable improvement over a single sub. Also, the 2nd sub doesn’t need to be identical, the same quality, size or even the same rated bass extension as the other sub to provide significantly better overall bass response than just a single sub.

Best wishes,
Tim

I use 4 subs. When I first tuned them, I used my 3-5 references  (jazz, classical and voice dominated music) to set them. I was very happy as it provided me a lot of bass without any boom. As I expanded my listening further away from "reference" recordings into other genres (pop), I had to dial it back a little bit more to accommodate their recording biases. (Not sure if the engineer intended or contemplated subs in the playback. Urban legend has it that some pop was EQed for car radios).That said, I just found another reference recording that was super everywhere but with a huge bass (but clean) presence. I've concluded that the sound engineer intended that bass but underestimated its effect. I just enjoy it as artistic expression.