Are big subwoofers viable for 2 channel music?

BTW my custom is Duke's (Audiokinesis) Swarm not "custom made by me"
I used the term custom because you could customize the amount of subs, amps etc. when purchasing from Audiokinesis
Duke always suggested the benefits of increasing the amount of subs beyond 4 (6,8) although for space and practical issues 4 is a good number, if I would have the space I would have go for 8 hanging 2 on the ceiling for vertical plane coverage as well.

Miller's 1st reply was right on target

I had PSA before, very powerful subs and Tom is a great guy to deal with but like Chuck and Tim stated and explained it is a matter of how many not how powerful, for two channel systems definitely a swarm or array provides what you are looking for, you can select from existing of the shelf subs or go custom, a big part of it is how are you planning to integrate the 4 (minimal qty) subs,

I went custom and currently running 4 passive subs and could not be happier

@noble100 I found the same with my 4 AK subs, without the port plugs they sound very good so the sealed vs vented sub dilemma I have a feeling it depends on other things, maybe the dimensions (length and diameter) of the port in proportion to the enclosure? Not saying sealed is not good, just that I assumed for music sealed was always better and Duke prove otherwise.

It is funny you said "they sound" the beauty of bass in my system is I forget about the subs, I don't tweak them, they are part of the room's furniture, I totally forget these exist, I don't "hear them". The only time I realize they are there is when I play rock and my wife starts screaming because candles and ornaments she put on top of the subs start falling off, otherwise to me they don't sound.

And again I'm not trying to promote my subs, PSA, rhytmik, excellent gear which I respect, but (again) quantity (4 or more) and ability to integrate them is more important than the actual brand.

Just that Duke of Audiokinesis if I'm not mistaken was the 1st "commercially" to approach the array, the concept and theory comes from Geddes I believe?

+1

Thank you Tim for adding details

Would you mind describing your setup and the AudioKinesis gear used?

Tyray: I happen to own also Audiokinesis Azel's speakers, to be honest I was shopping around for speakers not subs and found Duke (and Jim Romeyn) at RMAF 2018 (or 17?) and from all the rooms I visited that was (to me) the best sounding room, I'm not saying AK's speakers are the best, many other manufacturers make good speakers as well, we all know at these shows the hotels rooms have their own problems and limitations so what Duke have done with his speakers is give you the opportunity to tune the speakers (and subs) to any room with no external analog or digital DSP, this could be done with RoomEQ as well (which has its own limitations like format changing etc), anyways apologies as I have a hard time following thread directly and I deviated here, my Swarm sub system was a byproduct as I was shopping only for speakers and had subs already PSA and SVS.On point. I have Azel's speakers which consists on a beryllium compression driver for highs and mids and a midbass woofer for lower mids and bass down to 55 Hz, this midbass driver reproduces bass with extreme tonality accuracy on the low registers it reaches, to me it is one of these speakers "forte", the 4 passive subs I have are crossed around 65 Hz, Duke's Azels are standmounts on top of what he describes as a SuperStand which contains one sub and one (what he calls) space generator but that is not relevant here, just that the sub is in the stand saving space of having a separate sub. His subs have very very low footprint but what they lack on area they have on tallness (hence my wife putting ornaments on top) the good thing is you can fit them anywhere.
So four subs and two 1000 W amps (the one Duke referenced above). One amp powers the 2 left subs one amp for the right 2 subs. Crossed at 65 Hz, gain for each amp around 50% (more than that it provides still accurate bass but not needed and unbalances the system IMO), there is about 90 degrees phase difference between the left and right subs on my system.
I'm enclosing some pictures at this link
bit.ly/luismasystem
I consider myself an audiophile but I don't have as many years as you most had to deepen your knowledge on audio systems etc. my knowledge of all this is superficial and if you want details I'm sure that Duke will chime in
By the way @audiokinesis Duke thank you for providing the great explanation of your thoughts on sealed vs vented which always made me think about that paradigm, I understand 80% of it, based on what you are describing and since I have a "difficult" room based on REW measurements (I don't know where did put the response curve screenshot) could you say (Duke) that your vented subs overcome the irregular room response just as well as sealed or better because:1. I'm using 4 of them (vs 1 or 2) which requires less gain and allows for bass waves cancelling each other at almost most listening positions2. They are designed targeting the 20 - 80 Hz band better to integrate with your speakers (or any speaker which drivers reach down only to 80 Hz?)
Tyray: I ranted through my post and wasn't able to explain directly your question, hope you could gather from my writing the essence of what you want to know about my system. I sold my PSA and SVS (great subs by the way) for the superior performance of 4 smaller subs and the convenience of saving space due to footprint and integration with speakers and cost savings over 4 equal subs from different manufacturers.
PSA and SVS are great brands again and if you have the space and the money definitely you could do good as well with these
If you look at my system my source is completely digital (at this moment) but EVERYTHING else is analog controlled, no DSP or anything and I looked at MiniDSP, DSpeaker, Trinnov, (there is one I forget the name $4000 - $6000 which was IMO the closest one for me to consider) and since all of these rehydrate digital (with its limitations) I decided that RoomEQ using analog devices is better for my system than going digital downstream, so I avoid that when possible.

DEQX is the other method I considered to integrate everything but since I can do most of the correction analogue and since I am not personally interested in a complete flat room response I put the correction aside for the time being

Outstanding room and rig indeed

Thank you, it is actually a lazy rig, I have several problems, one is the wife doesn't want dual racks so I can put my turntable in, another one is the wife won't allow a fixed coach / chair on the sweet spot, so I have to listen from the side or move every time a chair to the sweet spot to listen. The other one is her decorations are on the way kind of blocking direct hearing. So is either these conditions or we divorce. Eventually I will get a separate room just for my stuff, we'll see

Hi Tim:
Thank you for the kind words, I'm trying to learn and as you stated Duke and Jim are a good source of unbiased data, they of course are in the business but they provide good advise even if sometimes goes against the actual product they are selling, this is something you don't find today commonly. If you learn how to filter BS here in Audiogon most of the time you can learn a few things too, there is a lot of people (like you which I follow your comments) that have knowledge and try to share such as well.
Yeah we have kind of the same settings, if our rooms were bigger (I guess yours is medium size room  like mine) maybe we will go higher on the gain settings to fill it but the "bass perception" I get is just perfect. I say perfection because I tried and can't barely hear anything below 40 Hz.
I thought on using the GIK but I have other priorities to improve my system which I think will be more relevant than a subtle change on room treatment.
In addition to this Duke's speakers take advantage of late reflections to improve the mid/high perception so room treatment, flat response filters etc. will kind of flatten / remove this and I just don't want that.
This is OT of course but among all the music I like is classical and instrumental violins, piano, cello etc. and even opera.
When I travel I love to go (especially in Europe) to live venues which are very inexpensive, one of my favorite venues are church concerts, usually these are $10 - $20 per seat typically (even in Paris, Prague etc which some concerts are even free) and you can do even two events the same day, you perceive the music coming directly from the instruments and also these churches high tall vaulted ceilings and walls provide all sort of reflections. If one could go into the venue with a microphone and a FR software and computer I'm pretty sure the FR curve will be all over the place, not flat at all, does that prevent us from enjoying live music? not at all and that brings me to the topic of perfect flat response, is it really that critical? I don't want to spoil this thread with anything else but the close to perfect FR of the bass using the Swarm by wave overlapping it is just brilliant, too bad physics won't allow for the same with all the other frequencies.