That is so fascinating using all different kinds of subwoofers. Is there
any downsides to this? Do they have different speed or timbre?
Speed or timbre. With a sub. Good one. Guess you missed the part above where I said:
human
beings cannot even hear low bass at all, at less than a full wave.
So for proof, my first sub was a ported isobaric Talon Roc. Isobaric is two drivers mounted back to back so one removes the air pressure from the back of the other one helping it move faster. Because the Talon Khorus uses the same isobaric design and so of course the bass has to be "fast" to match. This is the way they think.
This way of thinking is baloney. My DBA with sealed and ported, and none of the drivers as massively powerful as the one in the Roc, is way better. It sounds faster, more tuneful and articulate, in spite of what looks on paper as if it would have to be much worse.
You have to get out of the trap of thinking of low bass the way we think of midrange and treble. They are both waves and the physics is the same but the way we hear them is quite a bit different.
Like, midrange we can pinpoint the source in 3D space. Low bass we cannot localize at all. Treble and midrange we can hear a millisecond blip. Low bass we cannot hear less than a full wave. At all. That's like 50ms. Midrange we are very sensitive to volume and hear volume changes accurately. Low bass we hardly hear at all until it gets quite loud (hence the Loudness switch), and then once it does we are overly sensitive to volume.
What all this adds up to is with midrange and up we need two and only two perfectly matched speakers placed precisely symmetrical to create a 3D soundstage- but we can use a whole bunch of subs of all kinds and put them just about anywhere and yet they will integrate perfectly into that 3D sound stage.
