Ahhh--Problem solved. Adding a REL sub-bass unit...


I'm wondering how many audiophiles have given up on loudspeakers preamturely, or have gone down the rabbit hole of cable swapping to "fix" an issue with their speakers.  

I grew up hating subwoofers and home theatre.  I still haven't come around fully to home theatre.  I've warmed up though.  I've had my own issues with otherwise great loudspeakers, including a pair of Klipsch Forte IIIs.  I was very frustrated as I'm feeding them from a respected tube integrated, I've tried them with a 300B amp, and I've toiled over positioning.  

The issue that I was having was the mids and highs were dominating in my room--despite the size of the woofer and passive radiator. Some recordings were just too bright.  Sometimes I felt the speaker, however "alive" and dynamic was not imaging well, needed soundstage help, and so on.  

I hate to say the REL T9i I threw in the mix today is a panacea because there's always stuff to tweak.  Yet I have experienced this before with a Sumiko subwoofer.  Adding one to the mix and dialing it in so that it's barely audible has brought everything into focus.  Everything is more relaxed and energetic at the same time.  

I'd say that the REL is a room tuning device above all.  I have a larger room (I think it's 15 wide, 24 long and 10 high--in feet).   I'm not sure how much I'd have to spend or what different choices would solve this otherwise.  From a guy that used to reject subwoofers out of hand (my bias came from the 90s home theatre craze) I think that they might be necessary in the lion's share of systems with the lion's share of speakers.  To say, "you don't need a sub" with speakers might be true depending on your room, but I also think in most situations you are missing out on what they can do for so many criteria that are not necessarily in keeping with adding bass--e.g. soundstage, focus, imagine, fullness, taming treble, etc.). 

Finally, I really wish that I could try some other brands as many audiogon members recommended so many respectable names.  I ultimately went with REL because of its philosophy, my similar experience with a Sumiko sub (within the family of REL or somehow related), and the high frequency input connections. 
jbhiller

Showing 1 response by audioconnection

Keep in mind
Isn't the reason you are thinking of doing this is to improve the whole system?

 If that's not what your after please don't let me keep you from having fun wondering about it.

If you agree that introducing a sub and or subs your goal is to do no harm,

Harm is for example overloading the room at room resonance blinding you to all the musics clarity you used to have.

 Harm is adjusting the sub down at the room resonance but failing to achieve a smooth overall in room response at the listening chair.

 Harm is slowing up the musics cadence pace and transient snap across the board and ending up with a lot of 90 hz or whatever frequency smearing the quality in your music.

Vandersteen Sub 3s and High Pass together with room compensation address a total solution with whole system improvement

The High pass simply connects to your main amp, unloading the main amp of its heavy lifting, but most importantly dramatically lowers the inter modulation distortion within your main speakers cabinet allowing them a new level of performance, next the11 bands per sub analog adjustments built into Sub Three amps are adjusted to fix (y o u r particular R o o ms) anomalies achieving a smoother in room bass response, improving your musics pace,transient snap, dynamics, clarity and transparency while maintaining all that's good with what you have.

 Best JohnnyR
 Audio Connection
 Vandersteen dealer 29 Years