What 4 subwoofers to buy?

Elate wrote: "I have been reading alot lately about the DBA thing, and without even trying it, I am positive that it will be the best thing for me."

You must be pretty good at wrapping your head around new ideas, because the idea that four subs spread around the room = QUALITY instead of merely QUANTITY is fairly counter-intuitive.

Elac: "... the high level speaker input which I will need for hooking up to my vintage integrated amp..."

It is possible to make a passive "voltage divider network" which would derive a line-level signal from your integrated amp’s speaker-level signal. I assume REL subs have a built-in voltage divider network which performs this function. In other words you are not necessarily limited to subs which have speaker-level inputs.

Elate: " Will 4 lower end subs work for enhancing my system or do I need to go higher up in the chain as far as quality is concerned? "

Assuming your requirements are not exceptionally demanding in SPL capability or low-end extension, you probably don’t need four top-of-the-line subs. The SVS SB2000 looks good to me; imo the SB1000 would probably need EQ.

@williewonka wrote: "What do you hope to gain with 4 subs? why not just two subs?"

Imo the advantage of four subs over two subs is, smoother in-room response. And "smooth bass" = "fast bass". As a ballpark rule of thumb, the more intelligently-distributed bass sources in a room, the smoother the in-room bass. So two subs are potentially about twice as smooth as one; four subs are potentially about twice as smooth as two; and eight subs are grounds for a divorce.

Roberjerman wrote: "I know both the Cornwall and Heresy well. Sure, they play really loud - but sound overly bright... Adding subs will not improve the sound."

Imo adding subs can in some cases significantly improve the sound of bright speakers.

You can think of the tonal balance of a speaker system as a see-saw with the balance point at about 700 Hz. Brightness is a symptom of too much "weight" north of 700 Hz. By adding more "weight" well south of 700 Hz, subs can improve the overall spectral balance.

Subs can’t actually fix problems north of the subwoofer region of course, but if a speaker is good except for a lack of energy in the bottom octave or two, subs can be very helpful.

Imo, ime, ymmv, etc.

Duke
kinda into that four-sub thing

@williewonka wrote:

" IMO - the more "sources" the less detailed the bass gets and it I do not believe it equates to FASTER BASS.either

"I always found the fewer drives the better - when it comes to HiFi.

"I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one - sorry"

Willie, I have NO PROBLEM with agreeing to disagree. Let’s do that.

But I hope you don’t mind if I try to explain myself a bit. Heaudio123 pretty much already said it, but here’s my version:

In the bass region, frequency response peaks take longer to decay than the rest of the spectrum, and therefore are literally and perceptually "slow". Also, the longer it takes for a sound to fade away, the louder we perceive it to be. So not only are the peaks louder, but they hang around for longer. Double whammy. By smoothing out the frequency response in the bass region a distributed multisub system results in much smaller peaks, so we no longer have frequencies which decay significantly slower than the rest of the spectrum. So we no longer have boom, overhang, muddiness from notes taking too long to decay. Hence my statement that "smooth" bass = "fast" bass.

Smooth bass also results in more DETAILED bass because frequencies which linger for longer (those nasty peaks) are what blur subsequent bass notes. The key to clarity in the bass region is how the notes decay - what we don’t want is notes which decay too slowly thereby masking subsequent notes. Bass trapping also addresses the decay of the notes, via a different mechanism. It is not at all obvious that multiple subs and bass traps have this common ground, so let me explain that as well.

According to multiple experts on acoustics and psychoacoustics (such as Floyd Toole and Sean Oliver and Earl Geddes), at low frequencies, speakers + room = a "minimum phase" system. What this means is, the frequency response tracks the time-domain response, and vice-versa. So where there is a frequency response peak, there is slow decay. And where there is slow decay, there is a frequency response peak. The good news is: When we fix one, we have simultaneously fixed the other.

Bass traps absorb energy and therefore reduce the decay time, and the more often a sound wave strikes the bass trap the more it is absorbed by it. This is how bass traps absorb more of bass energy that is decay more slowly (and thus striking it more often), thus smoothing out the in-room frequency response. I’ve already described that a distributed multisub system smooths out the in-room response, but in doing so, it simultaneously improves the time domain response, resulting in more uniform decay times across the bass region. Therefore, counter-intuitive at it may seem, bass traps and distributed multisub systems are working on the exact same problem but coming at it from different angles.

In my experience a distributed multi-sub system usually makes a larger improvement than bass trapping, but there may be situations where the opposite is true. And we can use both.

Like I said, I’m perfectly okay with agreeing to disagree. No need for you to explain your position, but I hope you don’t mind if I explained mine.

Duke

I agree with the suggestions of Rhythmik... excellent subs in my limited experience. 

Duke