Thread: To subwoofer or not to subwoofer ?

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Post by Fitzcaraldo215 May 15, 2015 (41 of 42)
Adrian Cue said:

I suppose a sub is fine for a home theatre set-up. It takes the special effects from the LFE. For classical music a sub can be a nasty thing. I had two REL’s (not the big ones, which I simply cannot afford). I had to constantly adjust them to the music, avoiding overlap with my floor standers too. Heavy bass may be an asset to jazz, but it gets quickly out of proportion for classical music. I switched to GoldenEar Technology with built in subs, taking the signal from the same source (front speakers). Once run in, tweaked and positioned they hardly ever need further adjustment. And organs sound as natural as the room allows. This is my recipe, agreeing that tastes differ; sometimes a lot.

Sub setup and integration has historically been somewhat troublesome, particularly during earlier years dominated by stereo in analog. Hence, they still have a bad reputation among some audiophiles. Many Mch setups today have better tools for sub integration than do stereos.

After years of struggling with them myself, I attribute a great deal of my own current success with a sub to digital crossovers and DSP Room EQ calibration as contained in many Mch systems, unlike the more traditional stereos I once owned.

Even without EQ, though, today there are also really good, inexpensive measurement software suites that do a far better job than days of yore. Some even run in smartphones. Others simply require an under $100 USB mike with a free software package like REW. These are far better than the old Radio Shack meter I used to use.

But, stereo or Mch, I think a properly set up sub, particularly with Room EQ, brings us much closer to accurate bass response and a truer to live performance listening experience than is possible with many even quite expensive speakers.

Post by Yoropiko1 May 15, 2015 (42 of 42)
I use a subwoofer with all my sound sources, be it stereo or multi channel. I have it connected both High level ( for movie listening ) and Low level ( for music ) thus allowing it to augment my stereo pair during stereo listening. The sub crossover is set low enough so that only the very deepest bass notes are produced. My front pair are pretty decent at producing musical bass response on their own, but occasionally I'll listen to a track with extension that only my sub can really produce. As I listen in Pure Direct Mode I never artificially create a sub channel, the only Bass that ever reaches my Sub during musical listening is that contained already in the stereo mix fed via the low level input from my speaker terminals on my stereo power amplifier. I feel this gives for me, at least, the purest sound. I would estimate that 70% of the music I listen to doesnt even cause the sub to kick in at all, but on those few tracks where the sub does contribute, I know I would be missing something had I not added the subwoofer.

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