Why so obsessed with bass?

Emergingsoul asked: "Do subs generally do an inferior quality vs a high end main?"

At the risk of overgeneralizing:

The biggest hurdle to high quality bass is the speaker’s interaction with the room. This will cause a nasty peak-and-dip pattern no matter how high the quality of the speaker or subwoofer, and no matter where they are placed within the room. But two speakers in two different locations will each produce a different peak-and-dip pattern in the bass region, and the SUM of these two different peak-and-dip patterns will be smoother than either one alone.

Therefore, I would expect TWO high-end main speakers to probably produce higher quality bass than a SINGLE high-quality subwoofer (looking at bass quality alone, and not at extension - which is where subwoofers excel).

As the number of widely-distributed bass sources goes up, the sum of their in-room response becomes smoother, and "smooth bass" = "fast bass". This is the concept behind the use of multiple subwoofers - in other words, it’s actually about QUALITY, not QUANTITY.

Whether or not it’s worth the hassle is an individual judgment call.

Duke
commercially affiliated with a distributed multi-sub system

I think folks are liking the rumble through their bottoms, and THEN discovers it’s actually when the wind gets knocked out of your CHEST, is what they are looking for. NOT vibrate STUFF off tabletops in the next room.

The CHEST pump/BUMP/ whatever you want to call it, is what most folks like, NOT the SUPER SUB.. stuff.. The difference also is HOW that enclosure was designed, A Bass Bin, or a Sub.. A sub enclosure is usually tuned at 100-120 or below. They are normally used as SUBS 60 hz and below..

Bass bins.. 250hz and below, and they may be using a band pass enclosure with and XO to boot.. They are not subs, BUT they can do sub duty quite well, Especially horn loaded subs, VERY directionals.

They use to use them with a topper too. Mids and highs on a bass bin.. Panels, Electro, 57s 60s.

Regards..

I run 12 subs~a triangular stack of three in each corner on a bed of Brazilian beach sand. Since I could not find main speakers that go low enough for my taste, I don’t use them. My wine glass is plastic.

Still gonna rattle off a table top...plastic or glass..Just sayin' :-)

Pureed gray matter comes to mind...

Regards

Both extension and dynamics are important, but I also noticed that my new speakers have better bass quality - very natural attack and decay.  New speakers are three way with two 8" woofers in larger cabinet for bass, while the older ones were smaller  2.5 way with two 6.5 woofers.  Surprisingly extension is the same for both (30Hz). Smaller woofers, smaller cabinet, same extension - something has to give.  

With this 2.5 way xover one mid/woofer works up to 2kHz while the other woofer works to 500Hz only.  That way frequencies below 500Hz are played by two speakers while other frequencies are played by one speaker only.  That way it is possible to get any extension with smaller woofers by fortifying lowest frequencies with additional drivers.  I assume that bass refleks with small speakers is tuned to get best extension (for specifications) and not necessarily for the lowest distortions.