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Subwoofer: should we even use them at all?

Dear Community,

For years, I looked forward to purchasing a subwoofer. However, I recently became friends with someone in this field who is much more knowledgable than me. His system sounds amazing. He told me that subwoofers should be avoided because of the lack of coherence that inheres in adding a subwoofer. What do you guys think? I currently use Verity Parsifol Ovations.
elegal
lloydelee21
1,202 posts
 
Rockadanny,

Totally agree!!!
martykl
3,578 posts
 
Elegal,

Ideal placement of a subwoofer is most often far from ideal placement of mid/tweeters. If you put a sub in the same cabinet as the other drivers, you'll end up with (pardon the pun) suboptimal placement of one or the other.
elegal OP
70 posts
 
I love the pun! And thank you for a great answer. Perhaps they could design systems with a separate sub with suggestions on placement?
martykl
3,578 posts
 
Elegal,

Those do exist. Duke at Audiokinesis makes a really interesting speaker system with your choice of two different subwoofer arrays, one sealed the other ported. There are four subs with four channels of amplification in either array. I think it's worth visiting his web site to check out.

There are also traditional 2.1 systems out there, tho not as many as there once were.
oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,966 posts
 
I've been using subs since '98 with excellent results. I think the trick is the right low pass xover and slope. I run my mains, Revel M106 full range and use a Velodyne SMS 1 to apply the low pass slope and freq which is steep and at 60 Hz. I use a REL R305 sub, it's 10" driver is perfect for music and plenty for movies.

It's nearly impossible to locate where the sub is, it blends perfectly. I also run the SMS 1 's EQ to tame a nasty 40Hz room mode. I have a very compact 2.1 system that sounds way better than it has a right to.......it would not be the same without the sub
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