are subwoofers anti-audiophile?


I have been into this hobby 25 years now and have noticed not a lot of us use Subwoofers in our systems.

I have 2 systems, one which is a Celestion SL700 with their Celestion System 6000 subwoofer pair with a outboard crossover-----my other system has changed quite a bit, but with always large floorstanding speakers. I have also always had adequate power to the speakers.

My floorstanding system cannot match the realism i get from my Celestion/subwoofer system. In my floorstanding system, it is almost like the bassist is backstage playing, while the rest of the band is front stange and center. This leads me to my question. Why don't most of us use subwoofers? I am a member of an audiophile club and we do system hops and no one has a subwoofer in their 2 channel systems.
justlisten

Showing 3 responses by johnk

Most subwoofers are a total design compromise thus many not so good for music. But infra bass systems do exist that do justice to music reproduction, stay clear of little cubes with massive power and large excursions. Look for bass towers, bass horns, massive bass systems.
TBG try center placement of your subwoofer. Also try moving forward and back this might reduce the localization effect. Of small subwoofer. Massive design just produce pressure and detail to bass, small forced designs bloat notes can be located in sound stage, to me at 40hz or lower you shouldn't hear where sub is but standard designs are easy to hear where they are. Maybe cabinets vibrating at frequency that are locatable and higher up than crossover point crossover might not have proper filter so frequency above cutoff come through.
Dukes Earls idea is a good one. Swarms of small subs sure work well to even out in room response. But I can not get room lock out of such designs unless I up-size to multiple large subs. Still nothing like a massive basshorn or 31.5in woofer for pressure detail and freedom from bloat with hardly any dynamic or thermo compression. But the size and costs!! Smaller groups of subs are easily placed and housed. Might be better for most who need low end reinforcement than massive bass systems. But for no compromise I go large. But bet Dukes designs will sell better;)