Why are subwoofers so polarizing?

I understand you very well. I had many big speakers like the B&W 800S. For stereo use many subwoofers were all too slow. I would not even want it for free in my system. I sold a lot of Rel sub's to clients. For me it was too slow and I hated the quality it gave. But.....these days the world has become different. I do a lot of measurements with Audyssey and in particular Audyssey pro. With the PLW-15 from Monitor Audio and my way of Audyssey Pro I have the stealth low freq, I ever dreamed of how I would want it to be. In my system you do not hear the sub, it is fully inegrated in the system. I use it to 140hz. Instruments and voices become more musical and touchable. This subwoofer is superior in speed compared to the slow ( as hell) Rel and Velodyne sub's. All the tests I did with these sub's all failled.

I suspect that there are 3 main reasons:

1). High end audio was spawned ca. 1970 as a reaction to Japanese solid state electronics. The high end argument was "simpler is better". Skip the tech approach and banish unnecessary circuit embellishment. Bye bye tone controls. Subwoofers involve more devices in the chain, so they were contrary to the philosophy of the time

2) Subwoofers are hard to set up right and often suck when set up wrong. Many people form judgements after hearing bad set-ups

3) The easiest way IME to get a good set up is with a software bass management package like Audyssey. This, of course, requires a visit to the dark side - digital (or digitized analog) audio. You know how that plays with many in this community

Between those 3 factors, I believe you'll find most of the answer to your question

Marty

isn't everything??

Bo, I'm interested in your testing with REL and Velodyne.

I had a chance to spend a few months with an expensive REL Studio III, JL Audio 113, and a Velodyne DD-18. The only measuring available to me was the Velodyne's built in Room Optimization system (using the REL line level input only).

I've heard you refer to this issue you have with what you call speed and wondering how you measured it? With the Velodyne system one is able to adjust arrive time and phase which can have a dramatic affect on what I perceive as speed.

I have found phase can change from track to track within an album recording. Surprisingly, there is little to no mention of this in subwoofer reviews I've read.

It's usually noticeable with the Bass drum being in or out of phase. With the Velodyne a simple push of a button on the remote you can hear the difference on the fly.

Or are you refereeing to the general characteristic of enclosure design such as the difference between sealed or vented, small or large driver, etc.?

This is not about measuring. Instruments and voices are in real very small and direct to point out. Wenn you already have a system what is capable of giving an exeptional sharp individual focus of instruments and voices with the right dimensions. Wenn you use a Velodyne sub even with there own Room Optimization system normally instruments are not that sharp focussed anymore. Often instruments become bigger. The only thing I like of the Velodyne sub's is that this roomcorrection system gets of the low freq. issues. But it is still not syngron with the music like the Rel subwoofers. The material Rel and Velodyne sub's use is heavier than the material Monitor Audio uses. The respons of the unit of my PLW-15 is a lot faster. Monitor Audio also uses a very big magnet. At the show were I used the PLW-15. Many people thought that I did not use the subwoofer. I asked why they thought I was not using it. Because they never heard a subwoofer what was this well integrated. It was new for them.