Another Bass discussion...

@paulgartner, I think you will enjoy my post on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/iwnza6/reviewers_im_tired_of_your_sissypants_music/?utm...

It was a dumpster fire.  LOL.  We are in a minority though.  Most audiophiles just don’t care about being able to play a wide range of music so they have far lower standards when it comes to the reproduction of percussion (well, at least on reddit).  To your point, great bass is more realistic.  It’s also extremely difficult to do well.  It’s amazing how if you bring up “bass” the go too assumptions are that you only care about bass or that you only play bass heavy music or that you only want to play your music loud, blah blah blah.  

I mostly listen to Blue Note records, Jack Johnson, slow stuff...but I’ll still throw in some Pop, alt rock or club music upon occasion.  I didn’t drop crazy money on a system for so-so “good enough” sound stage, 3-dimensionality, vocal presence, color, texture, bass or anything else.  For me personally, bass is about speed, timing, punch and impact.  Lower midrange/upper bass integration is key.  Think more Bruce Lee and less NFL lineman.  Subs just don’t do it for me.  I’m more of a blues, jazz and rock fan so my speakers needs reflect the demands of that music.  I’m not saying that’s right for everyone!  
That said, @downdog is spot on for my tastes.  Zu Defs have the ability to make someone tap their toes because they push a lot of air 40hz - 250hz and the wideband driver means seamless mid integration. 
 @nonoise is right, too.  For rock and blues, 40hz done well will knock your socks off and JBL has been doing that right for a long time.  (I’ve had some Accuton 6”......would love to hear their 8”)
Depends on your genre and your tastes, but the right floorstander may surprise you.  I’m running Focal Sopra no.3 with a 25 watt amp and the bass is crushing.  CRUSHING.  No need for a sub.  Bass is superior to the triamplified, DSP controlled system (with room correction) I had before with 300w Krell amps and four x 8” scanspeak woofers per side (8 total).  As the quality of bass improved, I no longer needed to play the woofers at a higher DB level than the satellites for it to sound right.  The Sopra no. 3 are flat or close to it (depending upon room & placement).  
Anyway, sounds like you are on the right track and have a great system that’s a lot of fun.  Let none of the “audiophiles” suffering from the usual musical myopia shame you.  BASS onward my friend!!!

There’s a lot of reasons people rely on two speakers, the biggest being its relatively easy to understand and do. Plop two speakers down anywhere, make sure they are equidistant and pointed symmetrically and in your general direction, and they will image and sound great. Move them around a bit from there and you can get really quite good sound. From the midrange on up.

From the midrange on down is a different story. The lower you go the longer the waves and the more the waves cancel and reinforce creating great big areas where there’s way too much bass- or way too little.

The conventional wisdom, as espoused by the one here giving you so much grief and uncalled for insults, is to solve this with a combination of EQ and bass traps. He would have you first EQ too much bass into the room to fill up the nulls where its weak, and then to put tube traps into the room, to suck up the extra bass he just had you put there.

That’s the real reason so many people use just two speakers, they’ve heard nothing but the conventional wisdom. Anyone with 2 ears can hear the CW doesn’t work. But its too much work to try and understand what does.

Its called a Distributed Bass Array or DBA, a fancy term for using a lot (typically 4) of relatively small or low powered subs distributed asymmetrically around the room. Each sub makes its own set of lumpy bass modes. But with four they’re now all over the place. With four each one has to put out less bass, because they all add together. The result is much smoother more even, fast and articulate- and deeper. Much deeper! Also because you haven’t put too much bass in like you would with EQ, you don’t have to try and suck bass out with traps.

These guys know all this. They just haven’t tried it, and can’t get their minds around it. If you search around you will find all of us who can know just how great it is.

So that’s your reason. All this bad advice has led to a perception of "a" sub, or "the" sub (singular) that is absolutely correct- "a" sub ruins as much as it helps. Until and unless you get four in a DBA. Then by the physics described above all these problems are addressed. And oh by the way, the bass is so beautifully integrated you won’t believe it, the midrange is indeed clearer, and the sound stage expands creating a sense of envelopment that is simply wonderful. For sure a lot more audiophiles would think a lot more highly of subs, and low bass, if they could hear one of these.

And it also wouldn’t hurt for the old guard to loosen up and allow that there is indeed a better way.

It's your system, tune it the way you want. 

Thanks for the thoughts and links! I will dig in. 
@millercarbon Yeah I can absolutely see how 4 subs would be incredible when integrated well. I’m running 2 RELs at opposite end of my listening position. So one is located on the right behind the front right channel. The other is about 6 feet from the left of the listening position. So kiddicorner positioned. The gain is set lower on the one that’s closer to me and it’s great! 
Another thing to complain about and factor in is the wild swing and inconsistencies in recordings. Some real trash out there. Sigh. 

Paul, I could not agree more but, there are classy ways to do it and quite sloppy ways to do it. You can have very accurate bass and adjust it so that the visceral component is there without interfering with the mid bass.
People like nonoise who have little if anything below 40 Hz don't miss the bass because they can interpret the note from it's harmonics. They have no idea they are missing the fundamental. At the concert you are hearing/feeling the fundamental. To get this in a residential setting is not easy. It requires large drivers, 12" minimum IMHO and that is if you are using at least two, ideally 4 subwoofers. Then there is power. A lot of it. 500 watts is the minimum. I use 2000 watts/subwoofer. The small sealed enclosure subwoofers favored today require EQ to get them to go flat to 18 Hz. If you look at my system page find the screen shot of the frequency response of my subwoofers (each trace is actually a pair of subwoofers right and left) This is before correction. These are 12" drivers in 3 cubic foot enclosures which are pretty big. They still lose output as they go down. The computer corrects this so that they are up 5 dB at 20 Hz. You can see this in the basic target curve. This quadruples the power requirement at any given volume. 200 watts becomes 800 watts. I kick the bass up 5 dB at 20 Hz tapering to 0 dB at 100 Hz because in a residential setting this gives you that sensation of being at a live concert without corrupting the mid bass. Then I have independent volume control over the subwoofers so I can crank it another 3 dB for the Red Hot Chili Peppers:)  Without digital bass management it is very difficult if near impossible to integrate subwoofers at the state of the art. You can get reasonable close which is tough enough. Check out DEQX, The Anthem STR and the Trinnov Amethyst.