gochurchgo-
I guess I’d have to see what “placed ideally” equates to. Some light reading have the impression that one on each wall was the answer. How true that is I do not know.
if 2 $500 subs are better overall than 2 $200 subs then so be it. I’m just genuinely curious as the “4 is better than 1” motto never mentions “good ones“ versus “ones that should work ok”.
Highly recommend searching and reading just about everything posted by Audiokinesis. Awesomely succinct, won't take long, just don't read fast there's a lot to absorb.
The quality/quantity thing is admittedly a hard one and doesn't sort out nice and clean. There's overlap, where one kilowatt 18" REL might be better than four 8 inch Hsu tubes. But not if total cost is the same for both.
Better quality is always gonna sound better. When I told Duke which 10" Morel drivers I bought he had no problem saying mine will kill his. By and large though my sense of it is for the vast majority of choices out there four of just about any of them will beat any one you can buy for the same amount of money.
Put another way the typical Swarm type DBA runs around $2-4k and I just don't think there's any one or even two subs anywhere near that much that can come even close. Just look at the comments. Pretty much everyone who's done this says its the best bass they ever heard. Not the best for $3k. The best, period.
Duke even had a customer choose his Swarm, and he had I think a $20k budget. Not for the system, just for the sub. Coulda bought a $20k sub. Listened to subs in that price range. Thought the Swarm was better.
That's why this is such an uphill battle. As if the physics, psycho-acoustics, mono, and "integrating" aren't hard enough, you got to try and convince people the concept is so powerful it overrides the need for great big expensive drivers. Oh, and lamp cord will do just fine. Its just too much to swallow. Even though its all true.