Subwoofer for Wilson Maxx2

This sounds pretty basic - put a truly full range loudspeaker in a room and you end up with less than linear bass response at a listening position. It's not the speakers fault, it's room accoustics - it happen very often.

You need to correct the frequency response issue - you can move the speakers around - which will help, but most likely never give you linear , true full range bass response. Being 11 feet out in the room will definately reduce your low bass output - if you push the speakers closer to the wall behind them (try around 4 or 5 feet), you will see a definate increase in extreme low end. 11 feet is WAY to far out into the room.

Option two is to correct for the room anomolies via active room correction of some type. The third is to add a subwoofer to give you more control of the low frequency response, and to sort of overcome the room issues with brute force. If you do this, you will need a woofer with prodigous output capablity - The watch dog's do not have enough extreme low end output, in my opinion to do this. Don't forget, they are only 12" woofers - only capable of moving so much air, and they tend roll off the very bottom anyway - they integrate beautifully with music - but they are not brutes. You already have much more air output capabilty with the MAXX's, as it has 2 13" and 2 10's - so adding 2 more 12's isn't really all that much.

The reason to add any subs to a speaker like a MAXX is to augment in addition to the speakers low bass, and be able to "overdrive" the extreme bottom end to help with the room loss. I would want to have the output of at least a pair of 15's for this task. Actually - I would rather use a really good digital eq before getting into the subs anyway, as it will allow for correction over more than just the very bottom octave.

In my store we have NEVER had linear bass response below about 35 hz until we had active room correction. In 2 different rooms with many truly full range speakers, we never got below about 35hz and always had plump sounding upper bass - no matter where we moved the speakers to. Active eq or room correction has been the only way to extend the low end response and truly clean up the upper bass.

If you properly eq, there's a good chance you will not need subs, as the speakers are capable of full range response on their own. However, most eq's are digital- not analog. If you want to go from an analogue pre amp- you need to find a used cello pallete. Digital eq's would go between the transport and then the dac goes to the pre amp like normal. If you list all of your components it would help.

If you want to add subs with serious low end and super speed and transparancy, you should look at the wisdom audio sts subwoofer. I should disclose that I am a dealer and sell these. However, it is the best subwoofer I've ever heard. It is a pair of 15's in a regenerative transmission line enclosure. You can go to the wisdom aid owe site and read awhile paper on this. It is big. It is 101db sensitive. It goes down to a legitimate 15 to 20 and will move as much air as roughly 5 or 6 watch dogs or jl113's (which I also sell). It is unbeleivably fast and transparent. It is the sub I would use, if you want to add subs. There is no reason whatsoever to think that they need to be stereo subs. If you did this, you should run the maxxes full range and simply add the subs- I would try 30 to 50 hz as a crossover point. This will allow you to add more energy into the room where the maxxes are beginning to roll off ( due to room anomolies- no fault of the maxxes) and you have a good chance to linearize the bass response. Check it out- it's a beast, and the fastest, quickest bass I know of.