I agree that many audiophiles dismiss subwoofers without actually trying them for several reasons:
1. Buyer's remorse regarding the use of a high pass filter that actually cuts signal from speakers they've made a significant financial and intellectual investment in. 2. Many subwoofer installations (particularly in theater setups) have the gain and crossover set way too high. 3. Room issues rarely get the attention they deserve, and become even more obvious with integration of a sub into a system. 4. Sometimes the extreme LF in a recording is absent, of poor quality and/or simply distracting - and perhaps best ignored. I have learned the following in using several different subs in my modest system 2 channel system over the years: 1. Smaller sealed boxes with parametric EQ are much easier to integrate into a system than larger ported boxes - as they are easier to place in best location. 2. The benefits of the high-pass filter on midrange clarity and dynamics are very real, and well worth some of the artifacts the crossover might impose. 3. DRC tools (like Inguz) can be particularly beneficial to subwoofer integration, as it can tame some of the nasty nodes and resonances that plague our rooms and are excited by LF energy. 4. Keep the crossover point set comfortably below the +/- 2db rolloff point for the monitors. A gap in response is preferable to an overlap. 5. Phase adjustments rarely seem to have a significant impact - you can measure them with a meter, but their effect is subtle at best. -- esbrewer Server: 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo iMac running MacOS 10.5.7 and SC 7.3 Plugins: Inguz DRC, Sirius Radio, Album Review, SqueezeScrobbler Sources: SB3 (2), SB Boom, NAD C542, NAD T515 Amplification: NAD C720BEE Loudspeakers: Paradigm Studio 20 (v.1), SVS SB-12 Plus Headphones: Grado SR60, Etymotic ER4P http://www.last.fm/user/esbrewer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ esbrewer's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12409 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=67022 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
