How Much Do Your Subwoofer(s) Cost Relative to Speakers


For people who own subwoofers in the main system, I am interested to know the price ratio of the subwoofer to speakers in your system. Prices in MSRP.

Say if the subwoofer(s) cost $10,000 and speakers cost $10,000, the ratio would be 1 : 1.

If the subs cost $5,000 and speakers cost $10,000, the ratio would be 1 : 2.

If the subs cost $3,333 and speakers cost $10,000, the ratio would be 1 : 3.

Mine is at about 1 : 3.5

 

 

ryder

My speakers are $11,000 (I paid $6300) my subs are $5000 ($2500 each). 
 

Not sure you can look at it as a ratio as the entry into subs is expensive. For example I would be happy running JBL 590s ($900 a pair now) with my current JL subs but I could also run a pair of Wilson Sasha DAW ($40k) with my current subs and both systems would be fine and integrate well. 
 

I think the real question is how much do you need to spend on a good sub and more importantly how is the crossover handled. 
 

Look at something like the JTR. At $3200 it has to be pretty amazing with great price for performance but it is ugly and no one is going to wants it sitting next to their Rockports…
 

 

Thanks for the thoughts James. Yes, you are correct that the real question I intended to ask was how much do we need to spend on a good sub, or couple of subs. The price ratio of the sub to speaker is another way of asking the question. I realized that the cost of a good sub is not exactly cheap. Once people go with two or even three subs, the total cost of the subwoofers may have exceeded the cost of the main speakers.

I’m not sure if it’s wise to spend a lot of money on subwoofers. Having said that, I suppose it may be possible that few folks here have invested more on subs than speakers, especially those who run multiple subs. I will be getting a REL so any other sub which includes the JTR does not interest me anymore.

By the way, the MSRP of my speakers inclusive of matching stands is $9,700. The future sub will cost $2,749 each.

@ryder I have two Rythmik F12 Direct Servo subwoofers (Signature Edition) which I think are much better value than REL subs. They're $1260 each and are amazing. I got a REL 328-R used for about $900. I use all three. The ratio of these subs together is about 1:1 with my speakers. I could probably do without the REL, but the multi-sub approach works well in my room. At some point, I will get better speakers and the ratio will change, but the subs are here to stay. 

In other words, the ratio of sub cost to speaker cost is hard to judge unless one controls for value (value is the ratio of sound quality to cost). In my estimating, having three REL subs would be way too expensive, ratio-wise, for the speakers I have.