Do you use a Subwoofer when listening to stereo?

Having heard and loving the sound of B&W, always hearing that they do produce the amount of bass they say they do:

there is no way I would add a sub to those speakers

except

IF I felt the PORT was a bit muddy,  then sending low bass to self-powered sub only; thus out of both the main amp and speakers, might be preferred, that is what I suggest you listen for.

IF I was trying to fill a too large space with low bass.

I have been using a pair of Vandersteen 2Wq subs with my mains for about 12 years.  I wouldn't want to listen without them.  Deep, clean, powerful bass makes listening more involving and leaves more power for my mains.  The battery biased external crossovers keep things transparent.  Bass integration with these subs is superb, and in my room, corner placement works best, as they were designed for corner placement.

Hmm. Could someone explicitly confirm what I read here is true: that, even if I use twin-subs, I should set the bass on my speakers to 'Large'?

My setup: a Denon X3700H AVR (used as a pre-amp) --> Parasound A21 --> Focal Electra 1038Be + Twin ML Dynamo 1000w subs.

Currently, I have main speakers set to small with crossover at 60Hz.

I've read elsewhere that this is the way to go, unless one is using very powerful amps. While my A21 amp is rated to 250W with 60A peak current capability, the 1037Be (close enough to 1038Be) speaker measurements on Stereophile.com show that my speakers may be quite difficult to drive at <60Hz frequencies (a combination of low impedance and -ve capacitive phase angle).

TIA.

Hmm. Could someone explicitly confirm what I read here is true: that, even if I use twin-subs, I should set the bass on my speakers to 'Large'?

If you really care about accurate integration with your speakers, connect the subs using the speaker outputs on your main amp. Now if all you care about is "more bass", then do what you planned.

Oz

Ozzy62: Unfortunately, my subs don’t have speaker level inputs, only line level.

I don’t care about ‘more bass’ - just want to integrate subs as well with the speakers as I can.