Automatic Room Correction has won the Subwoofer Wars

I'm seeing the title of this thread as clickbait.

Unless we are talking about DBAs vs oldschool, there are no 'subwoofer wars'.

Now one thing I'm not seeing here so far but Duke did allude to it is the Total Room Energy which dominates the room sound above 300Hz or so depending on the room. The thing is, if the speaker design is competent, the measure of this in an anechoic chamber gives a very good prediction of how the actual Total Room Energy will work out in an actual room. We all know how the off-axis response needs to smoothly drop off; the Total Room Energy is actually what dominates people's impressions of the tonality of a speaker.

This is a matter of good speaker design; it appears to me that ARCs are apparently most useful in dealing with speakers with poor response.

I’m seeing the title of this thread as clickbait.

Sir, do you not understand my role here?? :-)

It was meant to be a discussion, in earnest, about how easy ARC systems have made subwoofer integration and, my point, that the advantages for the average audiophile outweigh the negatives.

Look at how easy and how little complaints there are in Audiogon. I think that overall, ARC has proven itself quite useful and more of us should look at them as a good solution.

If anything, this thread was prompted by another I started about how hotly debated subwoofer solutions, and bass in general are.  ARC is the great simplifier.


Best,

Erik

I hope the OP will forgive me, but it seems this thread has already gone in bit of a different direction already.  It would seem to me, despite being somewhat contrary to audiophile common sense; that flush to wall/corner mounted drivers (preferably flat, concentric and with 1st order crossovers) coupled with room correction might be most advantageous.  Such flush mounting of drivers with room correction would negate the differences and overcorrection of the direct vs the reflected sound, as the time of sounds would be nearly identical.
 As the room response would be in someways more predictable, some of the placement induced concerns might be built into the drivers response, further reducing the amount of room correction intrusion into the signal.

I hope the OP will forgive me, but it seems this thread has already gone in bit of a different direction already.  It would seem to me, despite being somewhat contrary to audiophile common sense; that flush to wall/corner mounted drivers (preferably flat, concentric and with 1st order crossovers) coupled with room correction might be most advantageous.

Well, Roy Allison, Peter Snell and Klipsch certainly agreed with some of these elements in general (minus perhaps the room correction).

Though the post was more about adding a sub than bass in general, your point is well taken.

As mentioned, a too-common post in audio fora is, "I got a sub, and it doesn’t sound good. Help me!" Unfortunately, trying to integrate a sub without measurement capability is a fool’s errand. That’s a tough thing for a newbie to accept, one who has spent a wad on a new sub, and who is reading audio fora and magazines where measurements often are held to be irrelevant.

In integrating subs, many people emphasize the primacy of placement, and I agree. And it’s a LOT easier to compare placements if you measure! In some rooms, nulls can’t be avoided, but if you measure, you can place the subs so they don’t have nulls at the same frequencies as the mains.

This is true whether you use DRC (digital room correction) or not.

Now you have to set up good crossover frequencies and slopes. I’ve done it both ways, and I agree, it’s far easier done by using some kind of DRC. I’m currently using Anthem’s ARC, which does an outstanding job at this. I had fine results formerly from a Tact 2.2X.

Finally, you have to adjust phase of the subs, and though it can be done without a microphone, it too is way easier with one. How many DRC systems do this automatically? ARC Genesis used with Anthem’s STR line does, but many do not.

So yes, the DRC systems really do help in setting up subs. (And as Erik said, this is independent of the EQ features.) Even more important is the measuring mic, its software, and the patience to learn how to use them.