Do unpowered Subwoofers/Speaker effect room modes?

Well, I wiil second Rives' and Xiekitchen's observation that dormant speakers will "sing along" with the active speakers in the room. The louder you play the active speakers, the more appearant the cone resonance of the unpowered speakers is. Touch the cone of one of the unused speakers with your system playing to confirm this for yourself.

That being said, I've never bothered doing an A-B comparison by removing the inactive speakers and listening for a difference. In my case it wouldn't be practical anyway as the speakers in question are a pair of Paradigm Servo 15 subs that are used only for Movies and XBox.

Happy Trails!
Vince@freewheelcycle.com

Xiekitchen...Rumor is that Linn promoted this notion that extra speakers degrade sound as a way to pressure audio dealers to install dedicated Linn listening rooms.

I have in my music listening room 4 pairs of speakers on two systems, one a 2 channel music system, the other a quasi-home theatre. I have a pair of jbl L-166's with 12 inch woofers, a pair of JBL L-200's with 15 inch woofs, a pair of Chario Academy 1's and a pair of Spica TC-50's. Usually only 1 pair is playing at any given time... I have noticed that if one of the mini monitors is playing, the woofers on the jbl's do, if you feel them, resonate somewhat. I have never been able to hear any sound or any interference on the part of the woofers in the room. I think I remember reading an article way back by Linn stating that you should only have one pair of speakers in a room and recommended to their dealers that only 1 pair of Linn speakers should be set up in a listening room. Anyone remember that?

I agree the phone reciever seemed just ever so slightly absurd. But hey, we are always splitting hairs in this hobby.

Well, I may just go ahead and pull those subs out just for grins. Though I bet after ubntangling all that computer cable I wont be grinning anymore. (We really dont need the subs for the Computers anyway)

Thanks for your replies, expecially Rives for sharing your experience and time, you're a real asset to A'gon and this hobby.

The answer is yes--they do affect the sound. They act like a capacitor and absorb eneregy and then release it. In principle it can affect (reduce) the peaks caused by room modes. However, in practice, it is so inefficient unless you had a very large woofer and it was designed to have the least resistance at your peak frequencies, that it doesn't make sense.

Yes, I read the thread that you mention about the phone receiver speaker. That to me was something like--could an ant be crawling on one of my cables? Things sound different.

Ditto, if you want better sound try some Monsoon speakers and a sub. Personally I have an old Marantz receiver and Sennheiser headphones for my computer. No room modes here.

Are you kidding? And phone receiver speakers???

Forget about it.