Subwoofer suggestion to Integrate w/ Meyer HD-1's

REL is great, but pricey. Their best unit, the Strata III is no longer in production. However, ACI subs are similar and about half the price while retaining all the quality. They are quick and musical. I just purchased one myself...a Force XL. They also give you a 30 day money back guarantee so you can try it in your home. Otherwise, people say good things about the Sunfire and Pinnacle subs. I think those lean more to the HT application and REL and ACI lean more to the music system application. Let me know how it goes. Best, Todd

Stearnsn,

My two cents....

X-800.

You are best to stick with the same manufacurer. Meyer make studio quality gear. This is very different from audiophile speakers and I doubt this will integrate well with anything but a studio grade sub.

Firstly, your speakers are capable of very high ouput levels - something which is expensive and hard to to achieve accurately between 20 and 40 Hz on a sub. So get a studio grade high output sub to match.

Secondly, studio grade monitors generally tend to have excellent transient response and tightly controlled bass. This will give you the impression of a "lack of bass" if you are used to hearing your music collection on audiophile speaker designs with copious warm bass (a big selling "wow" feature in competitive floor demos and, after all, audiophile designers are only giving customers what they want/demand).

After a while of listening to Meyer HD 1's you may find you gradually get used to the "lack of bass" and realize that the bass sounds markedly different on each and every track. Instead of mush you should be able to clearly hear the individual notes in the bass guitar riff or double bass loop (even with heavy drumming and music over the top).

There are three ways that audiophile speaker designers make bass appear stronger...

1) higher signal or boost in the bass frequency response (often a bump between 80 and 100 Hz) using tuned reflex ports
2) a higher Q or more resonant design (bass notes sound stronger because they do not decay as quickly)
3) higher amounts of harmonic distortion (often as a result of choices 1 and 2 above)

None of these commmon audiophile speaker design approaches (which sound very pleasant/impressive) are very useful/popular with studio engineers that need to make decisions on how to adjust & precisely EQ the bass response when mix/mastering. (They want to know what is actually in the source music rather than have a sound tailored to their taste)

Here is a test for you; Try some organ music! I suspect you will discover that copious amounts of resonant bass in the source music will result in lots of resonant room shaking bass coming out of your HD 1's (at least this is the way it should be - if it doesn't then as they say "Houston, we have a problem!")

Thanks Shadorne,

I am concerned that the X-800's might be too much for my space. Am I wrong?

I noticed in your system you use a sub with your ATC's which have similar freq. response as the Meyers. How is that working for you?