Subwoofers - Front Firing vs. Downward Firing

Allow me to paraphrase the great mathematician David Hilbert. There is no conflict between HT and music reproduction, there will be no conflict between HT and music reproduction, there CAN be no conflict between HT and music reproduction because there is NO CONNECTION between HT and music reproduction.

I personally like to take two down firing subs, placing one on the ceiling above me- firing down at my head - and another under my chair, firing upwards. This makes me happy.
Anyway, with front firing subs, I like to set two of them on opposing sides of my head like headphones...of course one is set a little louder, cause my wife yells into one ear more than the other...so it balances the sound, and stuff.
BTW, what's a subwoofers?

Shadorne,

Always enjoy your articulate and fact filled responses. I learn something every time...

9rw - home theater based mid-fi? Your ability to read is clearly as bad as your ability to (not) listen.

Here is an anecdotal explanation on why downfiring gives a smoother response in the 100 to 300 Hz range. This is quite an old discovery. The technical explantion is "quarter wave cancellation", which I gave above.

I checked out REL's design (uses downfiring). Richard Lord uses a 12 db/octave filter on the sub amplifier close to the corner frequency of the sub. This is very clever. It allows him to make a small subwoofer sound musical. Small boxes have higher Q (resonance) which is the main cause of HT boomy sound. By rolling off the driver before it hits resonance means that REL can maintain low Q across its output bandwidth even in a small box. The compromise with this design is that the main acoustical output is below resonance and SPL output is limited and distortion will be higher than alterantive designs. The added benefit is that the natural roll off below resonance will tend to integrate better with the in room bass boost and furthermore the 12 db/octave roll off from the amplifier will mate very well with most full range speakers. All this to say, REL makes a sub that will be highly musical (low Q) and one that integrates well with full range main speakers in a convenient small package. It may not kick the proverbial butt of the JL F113 in measurements and pure SPL output but for many audiophiles with full range speakers it may immediately work much better for them in their room from the get go. REL's design is less suitable for use with small satellite speakers. YMMV