Help me understand "the swarm" in the broader audiophile world
Hleeid wrote: "Interestingly, the DBA provided the greatest percentage of improvement in the smaller room." It probably seems highly counter-intuitive that a SMALLER room would benefit the most from having a LOT of subs, but the explanation is pretty simple: Smaller rooms start out worse, and therefore have more room for improvement. Bigger room + DBA is still better than smaller room + DBA, but the gap between the two is reduced relative to what it would be with more conventional approaches. By the way, kudos to Hleeid for his creativity in figuring out a way to shoehorn four subs into that 10x12 room. I would NOT have thought his situation met the "practicality" test, but the dude was determined. Hleeid certainly expanded my perception of what’s possible. Audiorusty wrote: " You can build a Swarm/dba with those brands or any other brand for that matter. All you have to do is buy three of more and place them asymmetrically around your room. You can even use multiple brands and sizes if you want." Yup!! Ozzy62 asked: "So if you have three subs that are all powered, what is the best way to integrate these into the chain? Especially if I wanted to connect them all at speaker level. Can these be piggybacked somehow so you don’t need individual speaker cables from each one running to the main power amp?" If the three subs all have speaker-level inputs, they can all be driven in parallel by the main power amp. The exact cabling configuration would depend on the layout in your room, but if you wanted just one set of cables connecting your amp to the first sub, then a second set connecting your first sub to the second sub, then a third set connecting the second sub to the third sub, that can be done. The speakers cables running to the subs’ inputs can originate at the speaker terminals instead of at the amp terminals, if that helps. Also, these cables can be very thin, as the signal they carry is in the milliwatts. Duke |
The idea that only swarms can sound good, or are the ideal fix for any possible ailment your system has is just not supported by evidence.I do not believe anyone here is making that claim. I'm an advocate of using the Swarm because it fixes bass issues by breaking up standing waves in the room, something that can't be done easily with both room treatment and bass management combined. But I have more than one system in my home. My bedroom system only has one sub, and by careful placement I got it to work great in the 'listening chair' :) But the sub in that case is not intuitively placed (such as in between the main speakers) and the bass cannot be heard throughout the room even though the rest of the system is. In a nutshell, we are talking about an advance in how bass reproduction is done in the home and the advance that a distributed bass array represents is major compared to the prior art. Accepting what science does can be really helpful. It can help keep you from getting sick. The results of science has allowed people to fly around the world. It allows light in the dark at a flick of a switch. It allows amplifiers to sound like music. In the legal world, there is a principle called 'dirty hands' which in a nutshell works like this: 'you cannot reserve a right for yourself that you do not also confer to others.' The idea that one can accept science to allow for light in a room but not accept science to allow for proper bass reproduction is to me simply ridiculous. |
erik_squires The idea that only swarms can sound good, or are the ideal fix for any possible ailment your system has is just not supported by evidence.atmasphere I do not believe anyone here is making that claim ...But that is exactly the claim that some have made: millercarbon Surely no one with the room, who takes the time to compare, would ever choose anything else. No one has. No one ever will. The difference is so night and day that Duke had one customer with a $30k subwoofer budget decide to buy the Swarm. Not even a $30k sub can match a $3k Swarm.And here’s another: mijostyn Proving the superiority of a multi subwoofer setup is easy ... the ultimate subwoofer system requires 4 large subwoofers with at least 2000 watts of power each and room control. |
One SW12 provides satisfying high quality mono bass. Two SW12's produce more realistic stereo bass, higher levels, and better smoothness. Three SW12's add front / rear information and truly envelope the listener in bass. @mitch2, Your above quote from Aerial’s Michael Kelly is very similar to a multiple sub white paper excerpt here:
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