Dual vs single sub

I made my secondary subs coffee tables :) An inch thick piece of glass in top with a lamp and no one even knows they are speakers, the WAF went way up at that point.

I agree with many above, four subs is the way to go, independently powered and signal driven through a mini DSP gives you flexibility to add room correction through room measurement via Room EQ Wizard (REW) in conjunction with Multi Sub Optimizer (MSO). My mains are passive subs running off of a Pass Labs X-250 and the secondary subs are SVS SB-16 Ultras which have their own amps built in. All are connected via balanced connections. The bass is accurate, powerful, and adds so much to music and movies. I add a little bass in my movie setting and had friends jump out of the couch a few times during a recent action movie. Pure fun. 

Hi Tim,

    I have two Kinergetics SW-800s (each has five 10” Seas drivers in their own enclosures wired in parallel) driven by a Pass Labs X-250 and two SVS SB-16 Ultras in my room. I have an active set up using a Mac Mini maxed out with SSD drives using JRiver playing lossless FLAC to my mini DSP via optical out. The mini DSP is processing 24/96 with 8 balanced outputs with 12 biquad filters on each channel which were created using REW and MSO. My main speakers (Magnepan 20.1’s) run full range. Highs/Lows of each Maggie have their own channels (4) and each sub has its own channel (4). 

To tackle the Herculean task of attaining perfect base I have spent almost as much money on my subs as my 20.1s. That is how much I believe it is important to get this aspect of the system correct. Proper base is essential to all music, I want a tympani to sound like it and make my chest reverb with a strike as it did when I played in an orchestra. Lower octave listening, even the vibrations you can’t hear but feel are foundational to the live experience. Those waves are dissipated in a concert hall but build up in a room and bloat the sound unless it’s done right. I’ve heard a lot of excellent systems and many top of the line speakers will not tread near 16Hz because they know it will be a mess in most rooms. 

While i get that many people will not go to my extreme to get perfect base having 4 subs of reasonable quality disbursed in the room can really make a system sound complete. When properly set up the bass is tight and integrates seamlessly into the system.

The most common statement upon seeing my set up is, “I bet you could blow out the window with that! Why do you have so many big speakers?” “It’s for accuracy,” I say and then ask to play their favorite piece of music. The first impression in listening to my system from non audiophiles is how “clear” the music is and that has everything to do with proper bass integration and room correction. I can turn up the volume to concert levels and it doesn’t seem “loud.” Yet when watching a movie where a tank rolls by the ground shakes, your gut gets a strange felling and  stomach makes a flip just as you would if you were standing next to it; shots hit you in the chest and make you jump. 

I agree with you. I can talk all day about how important it is but hearing is believing. All of this is not that hard to set up either. I followed a tutorial on REW and made some measurements. Did another tutorial in MSO when I was learning and plugged in my own data after seeing how it worked using the tutorial files. Spent a day having fun adding and refining it. It’s so exciting to experience how big a difference is realized when room correction is done right with an integrated sub system. 

My last piece of my system will be BACCH for Mac. . . Saving up my coins now!  

Happy Listening,
Steve