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.
128x128justlisten
Nandric, I don't share your sentiments. I love quality organs, especially in big churches. But as I have said, subwoofers are quite difficult.
Some comments have been made about the "speed" of subwoofers, and that's an interesting subject.

When people think of "speed", they think of good transient response, rapid rise time, quick decay, low group delay, and so forth. That seems logical, but it overlooks the way the ear processes sound at low frequencies - which in this case is somewhat counter-intuitive.

You see, the ear has very poor resolution in the time domain at low frequencies. In fact, the ear is unable to even detect the presence of less than one wavelength of a bass tone, and cannot determine the pitch of a bass tone from less than several wavelengths. The implication is that what's happening in the time domain - transient speed, group delay, etc. - is not readily detectable. And yet as most of us have experienced, subwoofers that have better transient response (such as low-Q sealed boxes) are clearly perceived as being "faster". So, is the science wrong?

No, but there is more to the story. Unlike in the time domain, the ear has very good resolution in the frequency response domain and can hear differences of less than 1 dB in the bass region. The types of enclosures that have good transient response (low group delay) also tend to have frequency response curves that slope gently downward with decreasing frequency. This gently downward-sloping characteristic is beneficial because it tends to offset typical room gain. On the other hand those enclosures that have relatively poor transient response tend to be "flat" anechoic down to a much lower frequency, such that once room gain (gain from boundary reinforcement) is factored in, the low-bass region is over-emphasized... and the result is perceived as "slow" bass. So the observation that speakers with good transient response sound "faster" is generally correct, but not for the reason we think!

Not long ago a paper was published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society that examined the audibility of group delay. They looked at group delay along the order of magnitude one might find in a typical vented loudspeaker system, and the tested its audibility in isolation (that is, the frequency response was equalized to be the same for the different trials so that the difference was limited to group delay). The data indicated that group delay was marginally detectable on test tones and undetectable on music. This is very interesting, because it confirms that transient speed, in and of itself, is not what determines the subjective "speed" of a subwoofer system.

So we are left with the in-room frequency response as that which best predicts the subjective perception of "speed" in the bass region. I am among those who really like "fast" bass, but I believe that it is most effectively pursued in the frequency response domain, rather than in the time domain.

The implication for the person embarking on a subwoofer quest is this: Analyze individual subwoofers with the expectation that room gain will gently boost the bottom end, and that if you have to err, err on the side of a sub that could use a bit more room boost rather than on the side of a sub that will have too much deep bass after room boost. Typical room gain is estimated at about 3 dB per octave from 100 Hz on down, so fudge that estimate based on your assessment of whether your room is "lean" or "bass-heavy".

I also think it's beneficial to take steps to smoothe the in-room bass and to that end advocate multiple small subs distributed around the room instead of a single ubersub (see Drew Eckert's first post above), but that's another subject.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer
Rleff, sorry I missed your follow up question. Basically it is a discontinuity in speed. Horns have a leading edge like live music and you always hear the subwoofer tagging along more slowly. I am told that the Zu Method is fast and keeps up.
Tbg thanks.
Duke since you are a speaker designer and a soundlab dealer do you have success with mating a sub to the soundlabs?
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;)