Subwoofer design that integrates well with Maggies and Quads and such is something that I've been interested in for a long time. Briefly, after building a very wide variety of prototypes in search of a subjectively "fast enough" sub, I learned from Dr. Earl Geddes that the primary problem is the room itself, so that is what needs to be addressed. But I'm not talking about room treatment here; I'm talking about an unorthodox approach to subwoofing. First a bit of background:
Dipoles inherently have smoother room interaction in the bass region than monopole speakers do, according to a paper pubished by researcher James M. Kates. The problem with dipole subs is, they don't give you that chest-compression whump! that good monopole subs do because they don't pressurize the room.
The peak-and-dip pattern imposed by the room itself is arguably the single largest hurdle to natural-sounding bass. It can be changed but not eliminated by moving either subwoofer or listener. It can be equalized in one spot only; move a foot or two away, and the equalization may well have actually made things worse.
The solution I learned from Earl Geddes is to use multiple subs scattered asymmetrically around the room.
The more bass sources you have spread around the room, the smoother the in-room bass. The reason is, each will produce a different room-interaction peak-and-dip pattern, and the sum of these multiple dissimilar peak-and-dip patterns is smoother than any one alone would have been.
Therefore, in order to minimize the discrepancy in the bass region between the Maggies (two dipoles in the upper bass region = smooth upper bass) and a single sub (one monopole in the lower bass region = lumpy lower bass), I strongly recommend NOT using a single sub; rather, I recommend using four. If that's not feasible, two or three are still significantly better than one. And the more you use, the smaller they can be.
If you scour the internet for comments on using Maggies with subs, here is what you'll find: Many people who try a single sub go back to using their Maggies with no sub. But nearly everyone who tries their Maggies with two subs keeps them. My recommendation merely takes that trend one generation further, to four subs.
As for sealed vs vented and so forth, in general sealed subs synergize better with the room, but a vented sub can be optimized to actually outperform a sealed sub in this respect. When Magfan plugs one of the ports on his Hsu, he's probably addressing this issue by optimizing the sub's native frequency response to complement the room's inherent gain at low frequencies, which is well worth doing.
All of the above imho, ime, ymmv, etc.
Duke
dealer/manufacturer
Dipoles inherently have smoother room interaction in the bass region than monopole speakers do, according to a paper pubished by researcher James M. Kates. The problem with dipole subs is, they don't give you that chest-compression whump! that good monopole subs do because they don't pressurize the room.
The peak-and-dip pattern imposed by the room itself is arguably the single largest hurdle to natural-sounding bass. It can be changed but not eliminated by moving either subwoofer or listener. It can be equalized in one spot only; move a foot or two away, and the equalization may well have actually made things worse.
The solution I learned from Earl Geddes is to use multiple subs scattered asymmetrically around the room.
The more bass sources you have spread around the room, the smoother the in-room bass. The reason is, each will produce a different room-interaction peak-and-dip pattern, and the sum of these multiple dissimilar peak-and-dip patterns is smoother than any one alone would have been.
Therefore, in order to minimize the discrepancy in the bass region between the Maggies (two dipoles in the upper bass region = smooth upper bass) and a single sub (one monopole in the lower bass region = lumpy lower bass), I strongly recommend NOT using a single sub; rather, I recommend using four. If that's not feasible, two or three are still significantly better than one. And the more you use, the smaller they can be.
If you scour the internet for comments on using Maggies with subs, here is what you'll find: Many people who try a single sub go back to using their Maggies with no sub. But nearly everyone who tries their Maggies with two subs keeps them. My recommendation merely takes that trend one generation further, to four subs.
As for sealed vs vented and so forth, in general sealed subs synergize better with the room, but a vented sub can be optimized to actually outperform a sealed sub in this respect. When Magfan plugs one of the ports on his Hsu, he's probably addressing this issue by optimizing the sub's native frequency response to complement the room's inherent gain at low frequencies, which is well worth doing.
All of the above imho, ime, ymmv, etc.
Duke
dealer/manufacturer