I agree with what has been posted in this thread, more subs is better, a lot better. I am currently running three subs as that is what fits my 10,000 cubic foot room the best. Each new sub added very noticeable improvement in smoothing things out, eliminating boomy spots, and making the bass very musical. I also do not feel that in my case I need a 4th sub as my two main speakers are the very large Byston Model T signatures which each has triple 8 inch woofers, so the main speakers alone have 6 woofer drivers. I installed an Axiom Audio EP800V4 at the left side position which is their monster dual 12 inch driver sub which stands around 48 inches tall, to the rear I installed an Axiom Audio EP500v4 which is basically a single 12 inch driver version of the EP800, and to the right side I put in a Bryston Model T sub which is a triple 8 inch driver, 48 inch tall sub; the same exact drivers as used in the Model T main speakers. All of the subs are perfectly matched as Axiom Audio builds all of Brystons speakers and subs, even the amps are the same.
Axiom V4 sub amps all use the fully adjustable phasing controls which are a must. Once I have my subs placed in the sweet spot of where they work best for the room, I get down on the floor next to the sub and slowly rotate the phasing control until I hear the best in phase presentation of the music content. Its very evident, the bass signals just stop fighting each other and suddenly become one harmonious signal with maximum smoothed amplitude. And it doesn't matter where you are in the room, the bass is the same. It only takes 30 seconds to phase the speaker and once set, you just forget about it.
OP, if you have not purchased any speakers as of this moment, I'd suggest that you look at Axiom Audio and for your room size I would consider their EP500. It's a little larger than your 10 inch JL's, but its a very musical sub. If you can afford them, the Bryston Model T subs are fabulous with triple 8 inch drivers and I have this one crossed so that it covers the upper most range of bass into the very low end of mid's; they are expensive! Like around $6K each.
But if you have a budget of $3500, I'd get three EP500's and place one on each side of the room and one to the rear. Then phase them for the room and you will have some fabulous lower end music which will not be muddy at all! Another important area to keep in your planning is the amps in the subs themselves. Most all of the amps out there are class D amps with switching power supplies. The switching supplies have very little capacitive reserve so if you are playing content with a lot of bass, they will top out easily and not give you what you want. If you have a class D amp with a large capacity Linear power supply with a lot of capacitance, there is a ton of head room to let the drivers hit their capabilities without running out of steam; that was another reason I went with Axiom subs, they have massive linear power supplies (you'd expect that with anything coming from Bryston). If you end up with just one sub, you will have a muddy swamp no matter how much you try to move the thing around and play with EQ or whatever else. It just won't work out well. I might also add that the real wood veneer Black Ash is stunning! It's a nice satin raised grain finish which is just gorgeous. My two main Bryston Model T's are in satin Santose Rosewood which too is the most beautiful speaker I have seen; but the Black Ash is just as nice in a different way. |
Erik,
I suspect that the OP is planning on buying a powered sub. I believe all JL subs have built in amps. |
Northman,
First off, do yourself the best favor you could ever do in this sport, go listen to the Bryston Model T's. Most likely you will find the standard 'Passive Crossover' version out there; that is what my pair started out life as. I run tremendous power here with my large space, 2000 watts per channel at 4 ohms and I decided I wanted to upgrade my T's to the 'Signature' version which uses massive, Mil-Spec built (gorgeous circuit boards with huge air core wound inductors) external PX-1 crossovers with triple dedicated inputs on the back of the speakers for each section. Ian at Axiom wanted me to ship the speakers back to him for the conversion and James Tanner at Bryston supplied me the pair of PX-1's. I decided to do the conversion myself as I have a nice cabinet shop in my barn with all of the equipment needed and that way I don't have to pack up two massive speakers on a pallet to ship to Canada and risk damage. It took me about three days of work to complete everything using OEM parts Axiom shipped me. The difference in performance with the PX-1 is just breathtaking! Find the Signatures to listen to.
Secondly, you should really look at the Axiom EP500V4 , this is a fabulous Sub; plus the amp is designed with a DSP circuit which will not allow the sub to be over driven or distort, you cannot kill these speakers. It's all Axiom/Bryston proprietary designs and ALL of the components are made in Canada, no overseas Chinese stuff. SVS was completely built in China and uses switching power supplies from what I saw (I burnt up six of their subs, both amps and drivers). JL I don't know much about but I believe from what someone told me that they use some Chinese components.
Thirdly, I think that if you are using properly designed gear, you should not be using any room correction type software to EQ your room. I have Anthem for my preamp and it's a wonderful piece with powerful ARC software with a fancy Mic. But after running it and allowing the computers to 'balance' the room, I turned it off and went full flat with just my Model T's and the amps/preamps and 3 subs. Hands down, no software EQ at all, flat just beat the hell out of the software. When I spoke with James at Bryston, he told me that they never use any software room correction in their spaces and Ian at Axiom said the same thing. Properly designed equipment should not need anything other than your own playing with speaker placement and location and phasing; which is far more fun too.
If you happen to be in Northern New England, you are welcome to stop in for a listen before you do anything. |
That a boy Northman.... Burlington. My old stomping grounds when I was ski racing on the US pro tour. I was down in town by Sugarbush in Warren and had a place at Stratton. Green mountain had their first shop and roasting facility in the town parking lot on route 100. Spent a fair amount of time on Church Street at the French Bistro in Burlington with my then GF from Montreal. I think you have the movie. Fun!
I am down at the Maine Coast about 3 hours from you. Drop by and have a listen. I am spending what I have on this stuff as they say I cannot take it with me, but actually I have a deal worked out and I am. No devil sticks 7000 watts |
Just an observation to report in with. I had an early version V4 sub from Axiom which had the switch type phase control. It only offers two or so options for phase alignment. Axiom redesigned it into a fully variable full range phase control in later version V4 amps. Ian did an experimental design amp for the monster EP800 V4 which had a custom response curve in two switchable curves. A normal ’flat’ response curve and one with a neat boost in the middle bass ranges for some real punch. He spent hours in the anechoic chamber developing the curve. He offered to custom build me a new amp for the EP800V4 with the dual response curves and he even engraved the amp panel with two settings; I asked him to do Bourbon Smooth for the flat position and Gin Gut Punch for the boosted ’party’ setting. He got a kick out of that and its what I have on my amp, nicely laser engraved. Here is one thing he also did, he included the new full range phasing control vs. the original switch setting phase I had. I was able to see the results of the phasing now upon installation of the new amp and I can say that it is amazing! a two position switch doesn’t cut it, its useless. When you get down on the floor and fine tune the phasing, you dial it in with just the slightest turn one direction or the other and there it is! Keep in mind that where it all syncs up varies with the room, the sub placement, how many subs you have, etc. If you understand what zero beat is with radios; for example zeroing a receiver frequency exactly with Fort Collins WWV, this is pretty much what you do with a variable phase control. Its fast and easy and the subs are in total sync, there is no boomy out of phase difficulty with the bass, especially in odd locations in the room. I think a variable phase is a must have when it comes to sub woofers and I know that Axiom/Bryston has it now on all new subs they offer... the best single change they made.
When I think back to when I got into 'subs' using the large name subs out there (and I tested a few including the Paradigm super monster with some outlandish power and if I recall a 15 inch driver), none of them did anything right for me. The bass was always just bass, mucky, bland heavy handed bass, often shaking windows or dishes unnecessarily so. What I have now is silky smooth, powerful musical, wonderful, perfect, BASS. You don't feel like the bass needs to be adjusted up or down and changed for each track you listen to. It all plays exactly like the recording engineer meant it to be played, it's perfect. I think design is critical in subs. My most beautiful piece is my Bryston Model T sub, this thing stands around 45 inches tall, 10 inches or so wide and 17 inches deep. It's a slim, tall sexy looking thing in Black Ash wood veneer with triple 8 inch cool looking drivers. Due to the smaller driver compliment, it really does the mid and upper range bass super well, but it is big on low end output too as it pushes a lot of air. The EP800 with the dual stacked 12 inch drivers handles the freight trains very well :). The single 12 inch Driver EP 500 is my sweet spot go to sub, I just love this thing. They also make an EP600 which is a larger cabinet version of the EP500 and I'd love to test that one out. Perhaps when I go to a four sub set up !
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Tuberculin, Class D is not a digital amp. Class D is just one of the next levels of amp design nomenclature. They have Class A, Class B, Class A/b, Class D so on. People always seem to think that Class D means digital, it is not. In fact where Class D really shines in most designs due to some amps not having a lot of very expensive feedback circuit designs is in the lower frequencies. Class D amps can suffer from upper frequency harshness if they do not employ fancy feedback designs. For Subs, Class D is probably the best option which is why most companies use it. It’s very efficient, produces huge power with almost no distortion at low frequencies, very low loss and heat which A and A/b amps make a lot of heat as they are not terribly efficient.
The best of all worlds is to have a good class D amp section coupled with a very nice Linear Power supply, large toroid transformer and a lot of capacitance for reserve head room. If you ask the manufacturers of the subs what type of power supplies they use, most will tell you that they have a switching type supply which has little headroom and therefore runs out of fuel fast. |
Just as an opposing point of view, I'd like to say that I have done a fair amount of comparison evaluation of Class A/Ab and Class D amps.
The switching power supplies are another story all together as I feel they don't cut it with powerful subwoofers. The heavy toroidal type transformers with a lot of reserve capacitance just has the massive headroom for large dynamic power demands. Take a look at the Bryston 28B3 monoblock amps (Google image these monsters and you cannot believe the power supply section), They are pumping out around 1800 watts into 4 ohms with what I am told is almost unimaginable dynamic power when under heavy loading. I have not had the luxury to try these out yet, but I'd love to.
I have a nice Parasound A51 amp which is Class A operation up to around 10 watts output and then migrates into a Class Ab amp when the power goes up as it can do 400 watts per channel into 4 ohms. It's a great amp, very smooth and musical. I was sent one of their new design Class D amps to try out and I must say that on the lower end, it was impressive with its 600 watts per channel and gut wrenching bass response. I did not like it much on the upper mids into upper range as I found it harsh on my ears after a period of time listening. But it is not an expensive amp and it uses the typical off the shelf Class D power modules which many companies elect to go with.
From there I installed a pair of Anthem Statement M1 monoblock amps which are gorgeous Class D slim pancakes vs. the A51 Parasound A/Ab amp. The M1's are connected to my main panel via dedicated 240V 15 amp circuits, one for each amp.... and running them on 240V vs. 120 V 20 amp lines made a huge difference in performance. At 4 ohms, these babies pump at a minimum of 2000 watts per channel and all I can say is that it was a major WOW moment when I turned them on with some music I am very familiar with. Massive low end, super silky mids and smooth/articulate Upper range. It was almost too good to be true and I wanted to hear how they were on me after a night of long listening.... just fabulous, absolutely no harshness at all. These amps have liquid cooled output devices and very proprietary feedback loop design along with an excellent power supply section. There are no off the shelf Class D modules in the M1's they are all Anthem of Canada design and built in Toronto and expensive at $7K.
Now after a few days of use, I decided to swap out to my trusty Parasound Halo A51 A/Ab amp just to get back into Class A again. After about 1 hour of use, I removed it from the rack and went back to the heavenly M1 monos.... no contest! The Class A amp was just blah and lacking in articulation vs. the M1's in Class D. The M1's are still here, I didn't use the A51 for about a year or so until I decided to use it for a surround system where it is doing duty as the center/surround/rear speakers which it does well for. But for critical listening on two channel stereo vinyl with my VPI Ares3/SME Series IV tonearm/Ortofon A90 MC, not much will come close to the M1's. Again I have not had the luxury to try the monster Bryston's, but at $30K for a pair of those monoblocks, I might be waiting. |
Getting back to Northman and his original quest for information; I still think that you should get yourself the Axiom EP500V4 subs at $1500 each in real wood veneer and with the new variable phasing. A pair of these I believe will outperform most anything you will find under $2500 each. Plus if you are not happy, they give you a 30 day trial, no questions asked for return; so you cannot hurt yourself. I think they even pay the return freight.... that's because hardly anyone ever returns their stuff. :)
If I were in your shoes, I'd get a pair of the ones you are interested in and the EP500's and do an in home comparison to make up your mind on suits you best.
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Well I don't think that you can compare modulation states as bits 1 and 0.
They are not computer code. So I don't see the comparison. Its just a difference in when the solid state device is firing or operational as in using current and making heat. It is how the analog signal is amplified. Analog in, analog out. My vinyl goes in in pure analog state and comes out the same way. Trust me, it just sounds much more articulate, defined and full with high dynamic range vs. my Class A amp. Its much better in my opinion. And I am not degrading the devices with excessive heat or worse yet degrading tubes which really don't do well with heat and other degradation with age, loss of vacuum, etc. I think that Widows 10 is far better than Windows 95. |
Tubeculin, I don't know what you consider 5% breadwinner prices for gear is, perhaps a Bryston 28B3 pair of monos? $30K...? But if $7K is in your budget, you should play with a pair of the Anthem M1 monoblocks. I think that is the bargain of the new century. Very affordable for high end, well designed gear and if you can find a used pair like I did, even better (but good luck finding any, they almost never come up for sale). And if you were not pleased with them after finding them at a good used price, you'd be able to resell and get all of your money back, maybe more. |
Tuberculin, This might be a better read to explain Class D vs. Class A or A/b https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class-D_amplifierYou can read how Class D is not a ’digital’ amplifier. It’s simply a full on or full off output device vs. a full on all the time device. Theoretically it can achieve 100 percent efficiency, but with the available devices it is not that high obviously, more like 90 plus percent. Class A amps have a theoretical efficiency top of 50% and as the article states often they don’t even hit 20%. But Class A amps make for fabulous winter time axillary home heaters or summer time A/C test appliances. Class D amplifiers using sophisticated feedback design and equally sophisticated power supply design not only deliver incredibly high output power with very little losses going into heat, but they move any distortion (by design) out of audible ranges. This is why a nicely designed Class D audio amp can be so incredibly smooth, powerful and not very warm to the touch with amazingly low power consumption in the idle mode. I think that my 2000 watt per channel M1’s draw only 3 watts in standby and 13 watts when in full on operation at idle. I tried to get a copy of the schematic of the M1 from Anthem as a buddy of mine who is an excellent ex-Bell Labs electrical design engineer wanted to study what they employed. Anthem told me that they do not supply technical design data on this amp to anyone as it is extremely proprietary. The guy at Anthem told me that they invested over $5 Million dollars in the R/D engineering of the circuits and they don’t wish to share it with any competitors. I suppose I fully understand this. B&O on the other hand developed their Class D ICE modules for general distribution to manufacturers who wanted a quick and easy way to build Class D amps at very reasonable cost. This is why most amps in Class D on the market are using ICE power modules and why they are great for Sub woofers where high frequency harshness is not an issue, but powerful low distortion Bass frequencies work well. I did have the opportunity to test and evaluate the Parasound Zonemaster Class D amp. They sent me one to try against the A51 and the M1’s. The Zonemaster is a very nice compact, 600 watt per channel amp. It actually plays very well, but for my ears, it had that well known high frequency harshness due to the inexpensive ICE modules. But it only costs $1200 dollars for a 2 channel 600 watt per channel amp! I told the guys at Parasound that as much as I enjoyed playing with the amp, it was not in my opinion well suited for a very high end audio system with high resolution speakers. I said it was absolutely perfect as an entry level amp for people just getting started and on a budget, or for college kids who want a lot of power in their dorm rooms and who have to move around often as its so light and compact/easy to move; or as an amp in a home theater requiring more channels to drive surrounds or rear speakers. People using lower cost speakers which are not going to be extremely resolving in the upper frequencies might not even hear any harshness. They got a laugh out of that and said I had actually hit it right on the mark in terms of who their intended market was; so they were very pleased that I was in agreement. They never expected it to be competitive against the likes of the M1’s. But the Zonemaster blew away the A51 Halo in lower end, lower/mid grunt, that thing has some balls. It just was not as smooth in the upper mids/upper range as the A51. A $1200 Zonemaster vs. the $5000 A51 did pretty decently overall though. If I was back in college in my dorm room which was set up like a party/disco club, I would have been the place to be hanging out had I owned the Zonemaster back then vs. my old tube amp. But then again the speakers probably would not have made it through a weekend. When it comes to high end amps, I think from what I am told the Bryston 28B3 monoblocks at $30K are about as good as it gets. I chatted at length with Ian at Axiom about the 28B3’s vs. the M1’s. He has heard both quite a bit and he told me that they are both top of the line, but he likes the massive reserve power of the 28B3’s and those are his go to amps. I of course pointed out that he is talking in terms of money being no object and he agreed. I asked if he was doing a value comparison, that is the $30K 28B3’s vs. the $7K M1’s, what would he do.... he said the M1’s would always be his normal second choice, but when I put it that way, he’d definitely go with M1’s; they are very close in performance. So there you have it; a well designed Class D amp pair against the some of the best in linear high dollar monoblocks is right in the running. And I am not heating the house with it or paying large utility bills. |
Ah, but there is where you are wrong, the good ones do not have switching power supplies, that was precisely my entire point. And the operational state of a solid state device is not a computer bit. But that's OK, I really like the Class D and others should try them too. |
