Will I benefit from a subwoofer with 20Hz speakers?
My source is a minidsp shd studio with Dirac going into Denafrips Gaia DDC to Denafrips T+ DAC to McIntosh 601 Monoblocks to Cabasse Pacific 3 speakers. The speaker's published frequency response is 41-20,000Hz. I presume this is achieved in an anechoic chamber. In my room however, it goes down to 20Hz, at least according to the Dirac measurements. In fact, I needed to flatten the curve and reduce by 5-20 DBs between 20-100Hz due to the room effect.
So, considering I already go down to 20Hz, is there anything else 1 or 2 subwoofers will do for my system? Would it create a more consistent low frequency field? I see many people adding up to 6 subs, so I wonder what I'm missing.
Thank you for your insight!
OP: Sometimes speakers image better crossed in front. Depends on a lot of factors, but what this tries to do is minimize early reflections from the side. If you don't have early side reflections this can't provide any benefit, but being only important in the mid-hi frequency range it's OT for this conversation. |
BTW: To all the nay-sayers, please take a look at the OP’s data. Notice how the original measurements showed output at 20 Hz very close to the output at 1 kHz. This is despite his speakers being rated to -3dB at 40 Hz. This is a very similar situation to the one I wrote about in my blog and why I keep saying measurement is important, and we may be adding subs for the wrong reasons. Let the OP clean up his bass first, and then decide, based on his own needs and values if a sub is worth the trouble.
In terms of what this SHOULD Be, I am going to go with Floyd Toole and Anthem's ARC room gain recommendations. Below 100Hz there should be a shelf of around +3 to +6 db. Basically this is "salt to taste" when it comes to bass levels, and follows my overall process:
1 - Measure 2 - Clean up 3 - Re-shape |
@bishop148 The point is not more bass! The point is to get the bass right. If the bass is deficient, the ear will perceive the system as being tilted to the highs; if there is too much bass the ear will perceive the system as being muffled in the highs. What you say is true, however if you were use a low cutoff filter at 40Hz. With most music I doubt if you could hear the difference. A subsonic filter cuts in about 40 Hz and I could never tell the difference apart from stopping the excess movement of the bass speaker. |
@erik_squires Again, if you do a life music recording out of the 40Hz-20kHz speakers and the flat 20Hz-20kHz treated room, your claim will be much more convincing. Post it on Youtube and you will be famous. Why not? Your audiences should not be limited to audiogoners. |
@lanx0003 - The day you pay me to do this is the day you get to complain of what I have or have not done. I ignored you because I have other things to do, and other priorities in my system, which will continue to be true. Since I make no money either way based on whether or not audiophiles take my advice or not, make of my postings what you will. If you think I am in error I suggest you post your own findings, and actually do something instead of complaining that I haven’t done enough for you, because the level of obligation I have to you or anyone else on this site is ZERO and I'll be damned if you or anyone else on this site gets the impression you have any say so in how I spend my precious free time.
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