Sub-woofer fast enough for Horns?

I have tested many many sub's in 15 years of time. In the past Rel was the most popular brand and most sold. These days they are not the best anymore. I Always owned very expensive Highend sets but without a subwoofer. Even sub's like the Rel Stadium and Stentor were too slow. The best and fastest sub's are Always sealed . And they have only one bass unit in front of the cabinet. In the past with Rel sub's you didn't go above 80 hz because they were too slow for this and they became very noisy. Avove 80 hz low freq. become touchable. With Audyssey Pro I use my Monitor Audio Platinum PLW-15 sub from 16 hz till 140 hz. This is possible because the response and control is superior to any Rel sub. Using it to 140 hz you get a new level in quality with a sub. Instruments and voices become more round, more natural sounding and they still have the same and small dimensions as in real. Rel sub's often make instruments and voives bigger than they should be. And I have the stealth integration I dreamed of for many years. Only in the last 5 years I found sub's fast enough for stereo use. I Always hated them for stereo use. Time has changed. Using Audyssey pro and using them till 140 hz sets everything to a new dimension!

Bob_reynolds wrote 'Can anyone explain what "fast" means? What does "slow" sound like?'

Well speed in the case of a sub-woofer is obviously not an apt description since they are concerned with frequencies that have no 'quickness' at all. In that case its the impression you get with a low distortion subwoffer that is not blurred by things like cabinet resonances and has other measures like servo feedback to ensure better tracking.

With regard to full range speakers its the ability to hear nuances you might not otherwise hear. In electrostatics for example due to the light diaphragm material they have it can accelerate and decelerate quickly. In my speakers, which are conventional, its due to them being lined with 1/4 inch copper that reduces resonances that mask detail. In horns its due to their acoustic impedance matching.

Basically is the impression you get of detail jumping out at you without blurring - you say its fast.

Thanks
Bill

Wenn it is slow it is not syngron with the music played by the speakers. And instruments and voives become bigger in proportion as they should be. Instruments and voices are very direct to point out in real. And very small in dimension. Timing is crusual in music. Most sub's on the market are too slow for stereo use.

Bol972s posts, although sincere, are basically bolcrap. Having heard live music doesn't make you an expert on recorded sound. I listen to, perform, and mix live sound (primarily acoustic instruments) professionally but my opinions have no "special" relevance because of that, and only a self important pretentious bonehead would claim that it does. Recorded sound is a completely different animal unless you set up your rig in Carnegie Hall and sit in the 9th row for all your active listening. Also, the amp signal arrives at a sub's voice coil the same exact time as a main speaker (unless your sub cable is 2 million miles long), speaker cone paper is extremely light and stiff, and the time it takes the paper to get moving compared to an aluminum, carbon, or plastic cone is irrelevant and audibly unnoticeable, regardless of the hype you may have been subjected to. Period. Room sound has BY FAR the largest influence on the blending of a sub, and differences in various subwoofer designs obviously do make them sound different, but the term "speed" as an overused catch-all phrase used primarily by people who are actually noticing other acoustic anamolies having little or nothing to do with cone material...or the time they spent listening to guitars in a room full of people.

No doubt the room acoustics is the biggest and often hardest factor to get a handle on in regards to bass and overall sound quality. Even more so in teh case of "full range" sound. Optimal placement of a sub or better yet multiple subs makes a big difference, as does how well the sub(s) are sonically integrated with the mains. "speed" or any sonic artifacts that might be attributed to that, even with most decent large subs or bass drivers, are a distant second and practically may not matter much at all if components are selected and set up well in any particular room to start with.