What percentage of audiophiles use a sub ?

I've never used a subwoofer, but I do like bass. I agree with the FAQ on the Vandersteen site that saya, "Bass is the foundation of music and conveys much of the emotion. Without bass, there is no music." This is one of the reasons I've never cared for tiny bookshelf speakers; I appreciate what Linn Kan speakers, and others of this size/type, are capable of, but they just don't provide enough low end response to satisfy me. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, successfully integrating a subwoofer into a system is not an easy task, and I'd rather give up a bit of extreme low end than suffer a disjointed lower octave.

I've always found the formerly ubiquitous 8", two-way speaker to provide sufficient bass foundation to satisfy. More important to me is having a tonal balance through the mids and highs that works with whatever bass capability is present to provide what Grado describes as warm, smooth, full-bodied, non-fatiguing and rich sound. I don't need extreme low-end extension or thump-your-gut power to get that, and as an apartment dweller, too much low-end energy could be an annoyance to the neighbors.

Learsfool brings up a good point about just how low in the bass frequencies a person needs to go to achieve high fidelity sound. Reading several articles online suggests that the range of 40-14,000 Hz is sufficient, with one article stating "the reproduction of orchestral music with perfect fidelity requires a frequency range of 40 to 14,000 cycles . . ."

Age and hearing can be another factor. One article said that 50 Hz to 15 KHz used to be considered the range of human hearing and was a standard for hi-fi reproduction. The article goes on to say that the range of human hearing is now considered to range from 20 Hz to 20 KHz; "however once out of the first flush of youth we practically have a hearing range of ~50Hz to around 15/16KHz (G#1 to C10/C10#)."

A reviewer of the Rega R7 had this to say about bass frequencies and room interraction:

"34-years’ experience in the audio world have taught me that the most common system building error is mismatching the speaker to the room. Place a mini-monitor in too large a room and you get the bass-shy “squawk box” syndrome. Far more common in the US is buying a speaker whose bass response is more than the room can handle, resulting in various manifestations of boom, thud, and rhinocerine mud-wallowing. It’s more than a simple matter of room dimensions and overall volume: wall and floor construction also play a crucial role. It’s been my general experience that if you can get clear and tight response down to 40 Hz in-room, stop and count your blessings. And think very hard about pursuing response into the bottom octave. One is more likely to screw up everything achieved in the musically useful range of 40 Hz and above."

So my under-appreciation for subwoofers could stem from my choice of music (various forms of classical, acoustic jazz and bluegrass) and age (over 50) as well as any problems with system or room integration with the subwoofer-reinforced systems I've heard.