Do you think you need a subwoofer?

Hey, Black Adder - I happen to agree with you (and thanks for the thumbs up on the system, btw) - room shape, etc. is very important, and the overtones/undertones make the most difference in musicality of presentation. I have no real bias, except for a slight one towards tubes. Natural vibrato, order of harmonics, and an infinite power slope I think makes for flatter response no matter what - I run my sub through my tube preamp, and it opens it up substantially. I dial it down to about 50Hz, which is enough in my mostly wood and stucco bungalow to give the undertones you're talking about. But you know, if someone told me they had a pair of Paradigm S4's, which are a bookshelf speaker, and they liked it with a Cary SLI-80 or the 300SEI, with no subwoofer, I would believe them in a second. I really wouldn't be surprised if a speaker that fast on a flatter power slope would produce a fair amount of undertone/overtone - it's just physics. I'm not sure about how the internal speaker crossover effects this, but I'm beginning to think it's more the quality of parts and manufacture than whether it's a first or third order crossover. Not such a zealot about Paradigm really, I actually prefer paper cones, but some of the more euphonic speakers can make me a little depressed - prettiness and color are nice, but they only get you so far. You need the extra taughhtness and speed to get the true harmonic structure. It's a trade off, and subs add another piece that can make it better or worse. Plus, the Paradigms with metal cones can get glarry if you aren't careful. Then I turn around and ask, Hey, has anyone listened to a DTS disc on their tubes? It sounds amazingly great. No really. Try it. I have no idea why. I think it's the extra gain in DTS and the flatness of response. Also, I wonder if anyone has any experience with supertweeters? For the record, no I haven't heard the DD Velodyne's, and the room I gave them a listen in was dreadful. The Velodyne sound still wouldn't have mixed with the rest of my system very well, either way.

Dear Biomimetic: It happen that I use supertweeters in my audio system.

Take a look: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vdone&1115433273&view

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul
Excellent post!!!!!

Dear friends: There are other improvemenst when you mate subwoofers to your home stereo audio system, example:

Usually the location of the speakers in our room ( with out subs ) is a " compromise " ( trade off ) between the best performance at the bass against the best performance at the mid/high frecuencies ( only in a few cases the location is with out any " trade offs ". ), when we integrated the subs in our audio system we can have the best of both " worlds " and you will be in " heaven ".

Now you can really know how good ( or not ) is not only your audio system but any single audio item: cartridge/tonearm/cables/TT/preamp/amplifier/CD, and now you can detect any sound reproduction performance problems in those audio items and try to fixed/exchange: now and only now ( not before ) you can say " this is the best cartridge or tonearm or SUT ,etc.. " that I ever heard.

When your subs are settle-in in your system you don't have only a great high resolution system but a truly full range audio system in favor of the M U S I C .

Really, you don't know what you have ( the great potential of your system that right now you are loosing. It does not matters what you have. ) till you have yours: subwoofers. It is a pleasure that you can't imagine !!!!!!

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Hello Raul,I agree that i did not spend a lot of time or effort with integrating my sub in my 2 ch. system,im sure some room treatments are needed for low freq. in my room,also i lack a long IC to play around with placement,,.would i be wasting my time trying it again before im able to treat my room with bass traps?