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Audiophile quality powered subwoofer


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Can anyone recommend an audiophile quality powered sub?

 

I don't want a boomy sub to rattle my house, something to fill in the lows of my monitors.

 

Does anyone have an opinion on subs that have room correction DSP like the Velodyne?

 

Does room correction take away from our purest view of music, or is it a good modern

method for dealing with room resonances?

 

Thanks,

 

Jeff

 

\"It would be a mistake to demonize any particular philosophy. To do so forces people into entrenched positions and encourages the adoption of unhelpful defensive reactions, thus missing the opportunity for constructive dialog\"[br] - Martin Colloms - stereophile.com

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The BK's seem very interesting. So far I have only seen 220V 50Hz models.

 

I need the 110V 60Hz, any idea if they make them and sell in the US?

 

Jeff

 

\"It would be a mistake to demonize any particular philosophy. To do so forces people into entrenched positions and encourages the adoption of unhelpful defensive reactions, thus missing the opportunity for constructive dialog\"[br] - Martin Colloms - stereophile.com

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I take it they are not over powering or boomy?

 

Without room correction, how do you prevent resonances?

 

Thanks,

 

Jeff

 

\"It would be a mistake to demonize any particular philosophy. To do so forces people into entrenched positions and encourages the adoption of unhelpful defensive reactions, thus missing the opportunity for constructive dialog\"[br] - Martin Colloms - stereophile.com

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I've generally been against subwoofers but recently purchased one.

 

I think the key is to use the volume controls and crossover controls sparingly so that it is very quiet and subtle.

 

Another key is placement. People often think that subs can be hidden - which to me implies corners - but mind performs much more articulately when placed out in the room between the main speakers.

 

Some bass lines are terrible though. My sub is perfect with real music - jazz and classical - but I occasionally put on some dance music (nightclub type) and the bass can be OTT.

 

It's not entirely the fault of the sub; it's just they're extended enough to show up incompetence in some mixes.

 

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The Rega sub claims 17Hz but only reaches 30Hz in my room. It isn't boomy at all and in any case room positioning helps.

 

The audio writer Earl Geddes recommends the use of three smaller subs (rather than one large) to balance out room resonance and get the bass sounding right. You'll find one of his papers here which covers the subject:

 

http://www.gedlee.com/Papers.htm

 

Note that one of them has to be at ceiling level!

 

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Hi: I am a big fan of and a long time user of Rel Storm subwoofers. They are fantastics subs (I own two for bi-amp configuration) and once integrated into your system they are practically invisible. They are easy to integrate by ear (trial and error). They also take on much of the bass characteristics of the mains because they are connected to the system via the amps speaker terminals. Finesse and power, invisibility, and extremely musical. I believe the newer models are even more advanced but I have not tried them.

 

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Hi Jeff:

 

I hope I can be of some help.

 

Subwoofers can be difficult to set up with satellite speakers.

 

One needs to take into consideration the shape and volume of the room, the frequency response of the monitors, room acoustics, and placement of the sub in the room.

 

I don't know of any easy plug & play solutions that will have a quality sound. It gets more confusing because many subs are designed and made for home theater systems and sound horrible with a stereo system.

 

I have heard two very impressive sounding systems with REL subwoofers. First: a friend uses a McIntosh integrated amp with Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento monitors (hope I spelled that correctly), and an REL Sentor III subwoofer. This sub is a downfiring type, room placement can make a big difference, and of course room tuning is required from controls on the rear. The sub picks up where the monitors leave off and completely disappears in the room. The detail is amazing from this sub, not to exclude the wonderful Sonus speakers.

 

My neighbor uses mostly Ayre electronics with an impressive pair of Sonus Faber Amati floor standing speakers with the REL Studio III subwoofer. Same design and setup as the above Sentor III, but larger driver and more powerful amp. This is a very well tuned system many audiophiles dream about. The bass is so clean and well defined, I have heard equal, but few better.

 

I have also heard other REL model subwoofers in home theater systems. Front firing Black cubes that truly rattle your bones. Completely different sound than the audiophile reference grade Sentor and Studio.

 

The last floor standing speaker system I owned was a pair of Thiel CS2.4 with a SS1 subwoofer. Thiel has a unique approach to subwoofer design. They address the incoming frequency range in relation to the main speaker frequency response and adjust the subwoofer to match perfectly. They employ two different crossovers: a selection of passive crossovers to match each of their speakers, or a crossover/controller unit to use with other make of speakers. This allows for placement of the sub in the center, out from the wall, in corners, or out in the room with easy setup adjustments. On the positive side, Thiel subs work well with a variety of other speakers, they sound quite neutral, do not interfere or produce resonance with the mid bass, and do not overpower the mid range. The speakers are reasonably priced, but the crossover/controller unit is not cheap and a necessity for a two channel system. Very well made (at least 10 different veneers available) and sounding subs for an audio system that will accurately, and pleasingly fill in where your satellite speakers leave off.

 

I have listened to a lot of subwoofers, most sound horrible in a two channel system. The above are two of the best I have personally heard. The Legacy sub is also awesome, but in my opinion, should only be used with other Legacy speakers. The best sounding sub I have witnessed was the Wilson Audio Watch Dog with a set of Watt Puppy 8. They are tricky to place, passive (no internal amp), and include a complex external crossover one can switch form 2 channel, to 5.1 or 7.1 use. One would absolutely need a Wilson tech rep to set them up, and of course the price is totally outrageous, but wow, the bass is as smooth, deep, and accurate as you can imagine (excluding the massive Thor's Hammer).

 

I'm sure there are other quality sounding subs available, however, the above subwoofers were the few that stood out above the many I have listened to. I should mention that monitors and a subwoofer/s will never be a substitute for full range floor standing speakers, but today, one can come close.

 

Daphne

 

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The Earl Geddes articles I've read argue against the use of one, really good sub. He says it's all down to integration with the room, hence the use of multiple units. Balanced correctly, he claims you can make use of more modest units. I've read a couple of forum reviews by people who have heard his system and bear out his claims.

 

I'm not sure why a sub (or two) plus sats can't be better than a pair of full range floor standing speakers. They can be optimised for the job, positioned in a way which suits bass reproduction (whereas a three-way might be compromised in the mid to get the bass positioning right) and, I'd have thought, smaller sats would suffer less from cabinet resonance. However, I appreciate the whole system would require experience or a lot of trial and error to set up.

 

Incidentally, the Rega and, I believe, the BK subs use the REL approach of taking the signal from the main speakers where required.

 

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Hi Shenzi:

 

I am familiar with Earl Geddes. There is no denying he is one very smart man with many years in audio research. However, one needs to take into consideration he is now self employed and attempting to market his theories on subwoofer design, and his theories have a good deal of merit. If I recall correctly his main design principle is based on a large unique dampening port which he has a patent for. He filed a string of patents for a type of driver but had to withdraw them due to other driver patents way too similar.

 

I also recall reading that his system is in a large room, about 4500 to 5000 cubic feet (127 to 142 cubic meters), and his subwoofers are quite large. In fact, all his subwoofer designs are large.

 

Here are some of the problems with subwoofers as I have come to understand.

 

A sub woofer works by typically playing frequencies between 20Hz and 100Hz (some are designed to go as high as 150Hz or even below 16Hz). Now the "monitor," "bookshelf" or "small tower" speakers are commonly only going down to between 40 and 60Hz before rolling off. Of course, that leaves a minimum of an entire octave of music missing from the high fidelity listening experience. To fill in that missing octave of information a subwoofer needed.

 

There are a number of theories floating around about the need for two subwoofers. Some think you need two because high fidelity is is stereo, or the volume of the room requires two, but this may not be true. Consider the following:

 

We all know that different frequencies have different distances between wave fronts. A 1000Hz tone generates sequential waves spaced around 12 inches apart, for example. Of course, the higher the frequency, the shorter the distance gets between wave fronts. The human ear is shaped in such a way it can actually triangulate sound frequencies and send that information to the brain so we can realize where the source is located in space.

 

When you hear sounds lower than 100 Hz, you would not only feel the noise, but it would surround you. The ears would not be able to localize the source because the lower frequency wave fronts we can hear are spaced farther apart than the distance between our ears (somewhere around 40 feet long), so in lieu of reflecting off your ears, the wave front simply passes through and around your head.

This means that a single subwoofer placed anywhere in the listening room (phase corrected) will create bass that is just impossible to localize.

 

[side note: Okay, before you guys start siting ten thousand exceptions to my description, please keep in mind I am writing in the context of music reproduction through speakers, not some sonic boom from an aircraft, or a large diesel truck hitting a man hole cover, or a bomb exploding two miles away.]

 

Hopefully, from my brief description you can see why only one subwoofer is needed in the average size room to create the sonic illusion of bass coming from the two main speakers. Also, I'm told that due to the size of low frequency wave fronts, most recordings have the side effect of being recorded with monaural bass anyway (Not being a recording engineer, I'm not sure about this effect, but thought I would mention it anyway. Perhaps someone on this forum can elaborate.)

 

Once one starts looking into adding a subwoofer, you will notice there are many theories on driver design, along with front firing, diploe, down firing, small woofers, large 18 inch woofers, one large box, and small cute cubes. Everyone has the perfect solution. Then there are guys who must turn up the volume of the subs. They absolutely need to know their subs are working, the need to hear the boom, feel their chest pound, turn up the crossover to 150Hz, and point the position of the sub. Now that is a proper subwoofer! For a movie sound track, but not for high fidelity music. Then again, when it comes to Rap and heavy metal, high fidelity is not an issue. Consider the majority of smaller sub woofers generally only go down to 30Hz or 40Hz. Now that seems to dictate which application its being applied to, doesn’t it?

 

With my first sub I became accustomed to hearing more bass in my system, my next subwoofer was a revelation because once I placed it between the two main speakers, adjusted the phase and volume correctly, the speaker disappeared, and the quality of the entire low-frequency spectrum vastly improved, even the soundstage expanded laterally; turn the sub off and the soundstage would collapse into the center. A good subwoofer should have the ability to produce low-frequency ambient information, thus reproducing music with a more spacious and physical presence.

 

Woofer design can be complex enough to make your head spin. In a typical three way bookshelf speaker it is almost impossible to reproduce deep base. A massive driver, which consumes a lot of power is needed for deep bass especially in the last two octaves. The bookshelf speaker can produce adequate mid bass, but once you turn up the volume, the woofer begins to produce distortion at its lowest range. the same also occurs with a subwoofer driver. Turning up the volume with many subs will normally increase the distortion below 30Hz. This happens due to increased side to side movement of the cone. Driver designers use a variety of methods to control or minimize this effect. Look for drivers with a low distortion rate between 20Hz and 30Hz, especially when the volume increases, then you can be reasonably assured of good clean sound.

 

There are still audiophiles who set up their systems using the traditional method. Using an active crossover off the pre-amp to three monoblocks - right, left, and subwoofer amplifiers. However, the market today demands nice clean single units for subwoofers. The crossover and usually a class D amp, outputting 500 to 1000 watts, is placed inside the speaker cabinet. Not the best solution for a top quality sub. Even custom built home theater systems avoid these boxes. In my opinion, some do not sound all that bad if placed right and tuned for the room. At least they are affordable.

 

Over the past few years I have heard large full range speaker systems that do not require sub woofers. I was just startled with the sound from a Genesis 2.2, four tower speaker system with a five woofer bass tower powered by external servo controlled amps, and a active crossover unit. That was until I listened to a massive McIntosh twin tower unit. But to top off with the most impressive speaker ever was the Perfect 8 Technologies "The Force" a 2 meter visual tower of glass and gold, with four subwoofers, but the sound was incredible, and should be for $240,000. But i was just a little disappointed, they sounded just a fraction better than a pair of Wilson Audio Alexandria X2 going for half that price and requiring a fraction of the power.

 

In my opinion, most systems can benefit from a good subwoofer. I am planing to purchase one in the near future. I have no idea which one at this point, but I keep thinking how nice the Thiel and Wilson watch dog sounded, then again the RELs were very good also.

 

daphne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi Daphne

 

Yes, I'm aware Earl Geddes has something to sell. Over on a DIY forum it appears to be a waveguide (aka treble horn) speaker system. The subs seem to have taken second place. If I understand it correctly, the multiple sub approach he's advocating aims to improve integration with the room and get the various dips and peaks balanced out.

 

My room doesn't produce much below 30Hz at the sort of output levels I use and I've found it possible to achieve this with a single widerange driver in appropriate cabinet. The sub didn't add anything at all to this system.

 

The small cabinet and hidden bass approach does appeal, though. How about no sub at all? http://ibsubwoofers.proboards51.com/index.cgi

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I also went with a Rythmik sub, though I purchased one of their ready made options. So far I have achieved pretty good integration with my Monitor Audio bookshelves. For me, the Rythmiks have a great combination of features, output, extension, small size, low distortion, and price. You could even use them for home theater if you wanted to, but they excel at music.

 

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The HSU line has always been impressive, They have introduced a new line geared more for music. You may also want to check out Ascend Acoustics.

 

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  • 5 months later...

I also have an HSU - it is about 10 yrs old, back when their subs were round! It makes great bass! I have since updated the slave amp to 500 watt class G. What I really like is having the amp separate from the sub. That way I can run short interconnect and a long speaker wire (Audioquest granite). I place the sub behind the listening position. I dont know about their newer lineup. I would assume that they are very good as well. I would try to buy a sub without the amp, and get the amp at Parts Express etc.

 

Eric

 

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************* sub or ************* sub. These are designed for music, and to be matched up with their lightning fast single driver speakers. They are hand built to order in the U.S.A. and very reasonably priced, also their build quality is beautiful. Many of the big name subwoofer companies are having some or all of their product lines made in China. I fully realize the quality of many products coming out of China is superb, but when we buy "made in China" we are shopping ourselves out of a job, and in many cases the pricing on Chinese made brand name equipment is no better than when it was made in America, Canada, England, or Europe.

 

Rob Martin

 

*******************.com

 

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Not to doubt the quality of equipment Rob is talking about ... but be aware his company (website on his post) sells these subwoofers. I think Chris has a very open policy on manufacturers commenting on their own products ... but would be good if they could make clear when their comments are biased by potential profits.

 

Eloise

 

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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Does anyone have any experience of using room correction such as Lyngdorf / Tact to integrate a pair of monitor type speakers, something like B&W 805S, and a subwoofer. Is there a significant improvement (for audio) over using line or speaker level connections straight into the amp?

 

Eloise

 

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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As an answer to this subject and to Eloise, I can recommend velodyne Digital Drive subwoofers. Those subwoofers incorporate a room correction system (only for the bass up to 100 hz) for the subwoofer so that it works perfectly with the room and the speakers.

I have tried a DD15 with Dynaudio S25 (also bookshelf speakers like the 805s) and Musifical fidelity amp and I liked the result very much.

However the automatic setup is not as good as the manual set up. To fully benefit from this system you must configure it manually and since it is complex (for me) it's better done by a specialist.

 

Laurent

 

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Hi Rob - Please refrain from mentioning your products unless you are asked a specific question about one of them. I've had several product representatives, manufacturers, and dealers contact me before posting and all of them have understood that these posts are not allowed here on CA or most other forums.

 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

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As I have not read every post here, I may be guilty of redundancy, but here goes anyway. If you haven't bought a sub yet, regardless of what you buy, make sure it has speaker level inputs and run the sub from the speaker outputs on your amp. The amp sees no appreciable impedance change as the sub is only taking signal, not power from the amp's speaker outputs. The sub will reflect the sound of the amp more so than if you use line level inputs, thus giving a better blend with the monitors. Also, some subs can take ages to break in, so whatever you get, don't judge it right out of the box. Some time ago, before I went into business I purchased a sub (not a brand that I sell) and out of the box it was a dog, but after about 75 hours of playing, it was incredible. The dealer said to give it 200 hours break in before even trying to set it up in a room. He was right.

 

Rob Martin

 

desktopaudioboutique.com

 

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Thanks Rob, that sounds like very good advice.

 

I currently have a cluge of parts running as a sub. The amp does have speaker level or line level inputs.

 

I have been intending to try them, and that make sense about it sensing the volume level of the amp, I will have to give it a go this weekend.

 

Thanks,

 

Jeff

 

\"It would be a mistake to demonize any particular philosophy. To do so forces people into entrenched positions and encourages the adoption of unhelpful defensive reactions, thus missing the opportunity for constructive dialog\"[br] - Martin Colloms - stereophile.com

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