Do you think you need a subwoofer?

Great articles posted by Davehrab.
They explain it perfectly.
I lived with the REL Stadium II subwoofer in my system for 10 years and loved every minute of it but my main speakers are large floor standing units incorporating 12" paper cone woofers with NO crossovers.
The adjustments available for the REL allowed for beautiful integration but mainly because the main speakers were going down well to 40 Hz.
The only criticism I have with subwoofers (or any drivers that have adjustment available).....is the sheer TEMPTATION to fiddle.
On some music tracks, the bass is satisfyingly solid and deep, but on others there appears to be a distinct lack of it because in fact that was how the track was recorded, engineered and pressed.
But the sheer differences in the bass quality between records, tempts one to turn it UP for one record, and then turn it DOWN for others.
This eventually destroys the careful set-up procedures outlined in the articles attached by Davehrab.
A year ago I bought the Halcro DM58 monoblock amps which are able to drive my main speaker's woofers down to 28 Hz and I found the REL subwoofer was not going below this in my room anyway.
I now have no subwoofer and have removed the temptation to add or eliminate bass.
What the record has....I get.

Dear Halcro: +++++ " Great articles posted by Davehrab. " +++++

I'm sorry, maybe I miss something: could you tell me where are those articles?, thank you in advance.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear friends: Two weeks ago the left channel Velodyne subwoofer ( in my system ) goes down ( till today I don't even have time to make the diagnosis to repair it. ) and till today it is in the same state.

Well, this trouble let me change some things in my system that were very interesting and learning about:

the first action that I take was to disconnect the subwoofer left signal and connected to the available right channel subwoofer ( left and right signals in the same subwoofer ) , this right channel subwoofer is placed in an almost " open " place/position with out any wall reinforcement ( this is its original position ). I don't change the crossover frequency not even the subwoofer output level, well it sounds but in " bad " way: the response was to strong, a little congested and with too many room resonances ( that before I never experience ), I set up with low output level but things were out of my satisfaction.
So I decided to change this right channel ( the one that is working, the other was down. ) subwoofer in the same position where was the left channel one ( down one ) that has a corner wall reinforcement, well all those " wrong " subwoofer bass response disappear and everything goes on " focus " with out reproduction trouble and with out any change on crossover frequency or output level.

How sounds this alone subwoofer against the normal two subwoofers arrangement?, well it sounds good ( very good ) but the two subwoofer ( true stereo fashion ) set up is really better and worth it.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul,

Davehrab posted 2 links when you first raised this issue.
Go back to first page of this Forum to click the links.

Here are two articles that you might find very interesting. They go a little beyond what is normally touched on here in the forum.

Read THIS and THIS

I've intergrated my 15 inch Velodyne sub to my NHT3.3 main speakers (which are -3db@ 23hz) by setting the sub crossover at 45hz just like the article says, and it works GREAT.

Easy, and quick reading ... soon the student will be the teacher.

Good Luck, Dave
Davehrab (Threads | Answers)

I just moved to new digs in Scottsdale, Az. My stereo rig sounds so different here because of the room. The floors are French limestone blocks, 12 foot ceilings, the room is 14x30 with a totally glass wall on one side, and an open floor plan on the other. The bass is nearly non-existant and the echo is severe. ..sounds like 2 sub-woofers are in order to bolster the Vandersteen 5A's.