Why do you guys pursue a flat frequency response when you buy a subwoofer?

Hi OP,
I am not sure you are in the right place to throw these aspersions. In all of my reading of how A’goners are using and misusing subwoofers I can’t recall a single instance when one asked for a flat subwoofer.

Every post about purchasing a sub here that I can recall (and my memory is not photographic) was about the most musical, followed by the deepest response.

Posts about fixing subwoofer issues certainly involves a lot of discussion about room acoustics and EQ. My thoughts on buying or not buying a subwoofer at all are here:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-not-buy-subwoofer.html

I argue that the most important thing to know before buying a sub is how you are going to integrated it well into your system and the room. That's where so much goes wrong.

Best,E

Why do you guys pursue a flat frequency response when you buy a subwoofer?

Because it’s the base line with what you can judge other subs by, if they all conform to it, then being compared in the same room you can draw a conclusion.
If you didn’t have this base line of flat in an anechoic chamber they there’d be no use to a/ any of them as they would all sound very different.

Cheers George