06-21-12: Onhwy61
You can't count on many speakers to make meaningful bass below 50 Hz.
Way too broad a generalization.
Really? I've been in audio for 43 years and worked in retail for awhile. I've listened to countless speakers and read countless speaker reviews that include response curves. In most ported stand-mounted speakers, there is a 5-10 dB hump around 80-100 Hz that drops off rapidly below that. If you reference the bass response to 1000 Hz, it's often down 10-15 dB at 50 Hz. Naturally, the bass response on floorstanders will be better, but for the small footprint towers, not really by that much. Mostly it buys better sensitivity.
Only when you get into the larger and waaay more expensive floorstanders (and bigger stand-mounts like the stand-mounted TAD do you get serious bass below 50 Hz, and that select group IS NOT most speakers. Most speakers include all the junk that passes for hi-fi and the fact that mini-monitors far outnumber floorstanders.
(JohnnyB53)
I'd say just about *any* loudspeaker would benefit from the right pair of subs properly blended.
(Onhwy61)
Benefit to a bass obsessed audiophile - yes. Required or needed for music reproduction - no.
Bass obsession has nothing to do with it. If the subs are properly blended, they won't particularly excite the bass-obsessed. What they *will* do is provide a more linear extension through the musical frequencies to energize the listening area uniformly--more like a live concert--and reproduce very low frequency resonances of the original recording venue. In a symphonic concert hall this spectrum has a profound effect on the crackling excitement of in-room energy, even before the conductor raises his baton. This audible room energy separates listening to live orchestral music from what most people can listen to at home--unless they have sub(s) that go to 20 Hz or below.
If you look around, you'll find reviews of powerful subs with sub-20Hz response that add soundstage and room acoustics to recordings of solo guitar--which by itself reaches only down to 80 Hz.