Northman, here is my $.02:
Four E110’s, intelligently positioned, will have about twice the inherent in-room smoothness (and correspondingly better tonality) compared with two F110v2’s. I can explain why if you’d like. Tonality in the bass region is a function of the in-room frequency response. And "smooth bass" is "fast bass", because it is the room-induced peaks which decay more slowly and sound boomy and degrade clarity and tonality in the bass region.
Another advantage of having four subwoofers instead of two is that the (improved) frequency response holds up well throughout the room. When the frequency response is similar throughout the room, any EQing you do will be beneficial throughout the room as well, instead of improving the response in the "sweet spot" but making it worse elsewhere. So if you have multiple listeners, nobody gets cheated with a good distributed multi-sub system.
Even three subwoofers intelligently distributed is imo a worthwhile improvement over two. Or to get the best balance between bass quality and number of "footprints" occupied by speakers in your room, maybe use four subs with two of them doing double-duty as speaker stands, though that might not be practical if the heavy-cone JL Audio subs would vibrate your main speakers.
In general I have a great deal of respect for Erik’s opinions. Note that his objection to a distributed multiple subwoofer system is based not on the technique lacking in merit, but rather on his negative feelings towards people who have advocated it. I appreciate the fact that he makes that distinction clear in his blog post.
Duke
