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Help me understand "the swarm" in the broader audiophile world

I'm still fairly new out here and am curious about this Swarm thing. I've never owned a subwoofer but I find reading about them--placement, room treatments, nodes, the crawl, etc--fascinating. I'm interested in the concept of the Swarm and the DEBRA systems, and I have a very specific question. The few times I've been in high-end, audiophile stores and asked about the concept of the Swarm, I've tended to get some eye-rolling. They're selling single or paired subwoofers that individually often cost more and sometimes much more than a quartet of inexpensive, modest subs. The same thing can be said for many speaker companies that make both speakers and subs; it's not like I see Vandersteen embracing the use of four Sub 3's. 

My question is this: do in fact high-end stores embrace the concept of multiple, inexpensive subs? If not, cynicism aside, why not? Or why doesn't Vandersteen or JL or REL and so on design their own swarm? For those out here who love multiple subs, is it a niche thing? Is it a certain kind of sound that is appealing to certain ears? The true believers proselytize with such zeal that I find it intriguing and even convincing, and yet it's obviously a minority of listeners who do it, even those who have dedicated listening rooms. (I'm talking about the concept of four+ subs, mixed and matched, etc. I know plenty of folks who embrace two subs. And I may be wrong about all my assumptions here--really.)

Now, one favor, respectfully: I understand the concept and don't need to be convinced of why it's great. That's all over literally every post on this forum that mentions the word "sub." I'm really interested in why, as far as I can tell, stores and speaker companies (and maybe most audiophile review sites?) mostly don't go for it--and why, for that matter, many audiophiles don't either (putting aside the obvious reason of room limits). Other than room limitations, why would anyone buy a single JL or REL or Vandy sub when you could spend less and get ... the swarm? 


northman
phusis's avatar
phusis
1,211 posts
 
@dannad --

Whether I am knowledgeable with your specific setup, I am very knowledgeable about how difficult it is to match the phase response of two completely different speakers, with two different amplification chains, and potentially with some crossover components thrown in. I am also knowledgeable about what happens when you don’t do it highly accurately.

I’m not putting into question your being knowledgeable in the areas you point out to me, but what makes your believe what we’ve done with my set-up (or the others I’m referring to) isn’t implemented "highly accurately," if that’s what your saying?

I am also knowledgeable about the specific case of main and subs side by side and what the artifacts are when the matching in phase is not really good. I am also knowledgeable that you can’t match that by ear to any good accuracy.

If this is the principle basis of your criticism it still goes: you have zero knowledge about the specific implementations in question, so what you have at hand is simply conjecture - end of story. I’ve previously had measurements and digital corrections done of my set-up with different main speakers, passive at that, using DRC Designer (in both time and amplitude domain), and it sounded.. oh well, why bother; what you need is the theory in place according to your head and a set of measurements, right? Currently with my fully active set-up and different speakers I’ve chosen not to implement digital corrections, and yet it’s certainly the sonic scenario of my/our preference. Measurements and digital corrections only get you so far, on their own. They can be helpful, but the final tweaks must be done by ear.

That I have not experienced your exact system does not change how the physics of sound and how electronics work.

So? Essentially what you contest is based on mains and subs placed side-by-side and our having done phase adjustments per ear, which is hardly the big picture. Sorry, man, this is a dead end.
phusis's avatar
phusis
1,211 posts
 
@atmasphere

Uh... it is.

The size of the subs *has* been taken into consideration by Duke of Audiokinesis and that is the beauty of his system. His subs are 1 foot square by 2 feet (using a 10" driver), which is fairly small as subs go, yet they go flat to 20Hz. He gets away with that because they are designed to work in the room boundary effect and so roll off at 3dB/octave starting around 100Hz. This means they have to be placed close to the walls (which usually happen to be more out of the way, resulting in inconspicuous placement in most rooms) in order to work right. It sounds to me from your comment above that you might have missed this bit in the prior conversation. Most subs are not designed to take advantage of the room boundary effect because the right place to put them is likely not against the wall- its where-ever in the room it has to be in order to work.

Mr. Karsten,

Thank you for pointing this out, not that I wasn’t aware of the boundary effect you mention. My main aim was to go after the scale of the DBA set-ups typically used, not the design principles themselves. I believe size-considerations to make the DBA system commercially viable have been prevalent, which is understandable, but for those wanting to take the bar even higher a bigger scale will be advantageous.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,844 posts
 
for those wanting to take the bar even higher a bigger scale will be advantageous.
IME what this often means has something to do with sound pressure. Certainly its no worries building subs that go deeper, can do greater sound pressure and the like. But I've seen the Swarm do quite well; in a nutshell, what it allows you to do is in most rooms set up a system where the bass will be superlative. So this in turn allows you to set up a system on a variety of budgets that really can be state of the art in terms of resolution, since the mains really don't have to go below 60Hz.
phusis's avatar
phusis
1,211 posts
 
IME what this often means has something to do with sound pressure.

That's certainly the potential of a scaled-up sub system (i.e.: added SPL capacity through bigger air radiation area/higher sensitivity/ability to take more power and larger overall size), yes, but it's not the goal per se or rather as much as that which relates to added headroom; performance gains at a similar SPL compared to a smaller/less powerful system due to less cone movement and wattage put through the voice coils, and therefore less distortion and cleaner bass. That's the prevailing logic of (more) headroom, and it's far overlooked in audiophilia in general as large size (and very high SPL capabilities) are usually scoffed at, otherwise deemed undesirable (i.e.: WAF, interior decoration) or ridiculed for being overkill. 
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
It is very hard to overkill subwoofers. The larger the driver the lower the distortion all other parameters being equal. Certainly with more subwoofers you can get away with smaller drivers but still. The larger drivers require larger enclosures which may be a cosmetic problem. As Ralph implied the best place to put subwoofers is in a corner or against a wall for a number of reasons. The problem becomes timing them so that they are in phase with the satellites and the wavefront from the subs and satellites reaches you at the same time. This is not so easy. In trying to match satellites without a high pass filter ridiculously low cross out points are being used. It is easier to integrate a subwoofer with higher crossover points 100 to 125 Hz. It is much easier to hear when the drivers are in phase. This requires at least two subs and a 2 way crossover. I have not used random placement around the room so I really can not comment on that type of setup. My 4 subs are arranged symmetrically around the satellites. I use digital bass management and can change crossover points and delay on the run so I can hear the differences immediately which is a big help with setup. There are several units available now that do this. The result is that you can not tell there are subs in the system until a real low note comes along and I am matching subs to dipole ESLs
As several people have mentioned on this forum, rolling off the satellites lowers distortion in them and increases head room by as much as 10 dB. 
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