Musical subwoofer under $2000


I’m looking for advice on what vendors to look at as l’d really like to add a subwoofer to my 2 channel setup. The room is c. 30x15 feet or 42 square meters with low ceiling of about 7.5 feet or 2.2 meters. Budget is c.$2,000 and my 2 channel speakers are Sonus Faber Sonetto VIII. My amp offers pre-out connection. I’d like REL but their S range is now too expensive, so something close in musicality would be great. 

sparksgja

Showing 4 responses by lemonhaze

@sparksgja, I lost somehow a long post when I clicked on 'review' I'll keep it shorter and try again.

On page 1 two links were provided: one by @ditusa and one by @audiorusty and I strongly encourage you to read them. The contents will clear up some conflicting opinions.   This should be required reading for all.

In almost any thread on subs there are those who complain of slow bass.  No such thing!  They may hear that sounds seem muffled and indistinct but it is not because the speaker is slow, the driver will obey the input signal, it has no option. This is more thoroughly covered in the links mentioned.

Let me explain: All rooms without exception have modal issues with bass waves combining either in phase or out of phase and also in between creating peaks, nulls and partial nulls. An in-phase condition will result in a peak which can be 15 to 20 dB higher than other frequencies causing what is known as either one-note bass, boomy bass or slow bass because the elevated peak takes longer to decay than the rest of the spectrum. It will be apparent then that the muddle resulting is not pleasant to listen to.

This common problem can be dealt with in 2 ways by adding room treatment or by adding multi-subs or better still is to use both. When you do both you are effectively taking the room acoustics out of the equation, so what are you left with? You are left with being transported to the venue which is the ideal situation and needs to be heard.

It has been suggested to get 2 lesser subs than just one big expensive one and I fully agree. The best I have heard are servo subs available from both Brian Ding at Rythmik and Danny Ritchie from GR Research. Available as DIY kit too. I have at the moment a REL and an SVS and find SVS superior but will build a servo sub to add to the system, not for more bass but for more of the multi-sub magic 😎

If you go this route, in addition to taming the peaks there is a corresponding filling in of the nulls which are as big a problem as the peaks, Nulls are like black holes for music, there isn't any music, it's been cancelled. The more subs the smooother the response allowing you to hear all the music without having some important bits swallowed up in black holes 🤔

The subs to look for IMO should be sealed and have continuous phase adjustment which will make integration much easier. My 2 small subs augmenting some OB speakers fill my well treated 5X7 meter room with tight slamming and detailed bass enhancing not only the bottom end but indeed everything providing a rewarding and immersive experience.

I mentioned on another thread that on a few certain recordings I can hear the size of the big hall even before the music has started.

 

@gotvinyl, thanks for the compliment. Yes Duke's Swarm or Debra are great and great value. However although the multi-sub approach is amazing I find that the lower frequencies in some rooms take too long to decay and some help from bass traps help reduce the decay time and provide even greater improvement. 

Measurement using REW or similar is the icing on the cake to really dial things in. The CSD or waterfall plot clearly indicates where any problems or resonances lie.

 

 

 

@highend64, thanks for the heads up on Rational Acoustics. I was not aware of this and will be looking into it. I use mostly Omnimic V2 available from Parts Express.

@gdnrbob, yes Richard Vandersteen's rather unique practice of using a woofer below it's natural resonance frequency works extremely well. I have not seen mention of anyone else using this approach.

High passing the main speakers makes so much sense I'm surprised it is not more widely adopted. As you say: it unloads the amp essentially providing more headroom and reduces speaker IM distortion.

I have a DIY line stage where I can select between output terminals and have one of them with a single cap and resistor soldered in place forming a simple line level high-pass. For those interested who do not want to butcher their kit just connect it to either end of your interconnect cables.

The value of cap depends on the input impedance of the power amp or the internal impedance of the tape loop in your integrated amp.

Google PLLXO (passive line level cross over) for tables and simple formula. This is not only the least expensive way to do this but also probably causes the least damage by avoiding extra cables and their associated connectors.