Your sub experience: Easy or hard?


For those of us with subwoofers, I'm curious whether you thought integrating it was easy or difficult.  That's it.

Of course, lots of DBA people will chime in. No problem but please ask that everyone stay on topic.  If you want to discuss all the pro's and cons of DBA take it to a brand new thread.  Thank you.

The focus here is just to ask how many people had easy or difficult times and what you thought was the difference.

erik_squires

I have a sub system that was not very popular when released 30-ish years ago, the Hsu Research TN 1225/Model 500 amp.  Dr. Hsu is a passionate engineer for subwoofers.  This passive system has the 500 watt amp that can run two of the 12in drivers in parallel.  They are a cylindrical tube with basically that 12in footprint so makes placement fairly easy.  Only needing to run a speaker wire also helps matters.  I was able to integrate these with my Wilson Sophia running full range beautifully.  I have the subs cut off at 43Hz and they are 100% invisible, one in the front to the left and one behind to the right.  This was the only position I had and thankfully worked.  My room is the front room of my house so very limiting on placement.  Not sure if any mfg offers a similar passive system nowadays but this design has really worked well for musical bass with zero boom that I have heard so much from traditional powered boxes. 

I bought a used  REL SHO S/3 to add to my Magnepan's 1.7i and used this video to set it up and get dialed in: REL setup

It absolutely blew my mind, how better my system sounded, highly recommend. If you have a Magnepan, get a REL.

Away from the corner, closer to the speaker and closer to the side wall facing the listening position or on the room diagonal.

I have two JL Fathom v1 13’s and use a DBX Venue Driverack 360 to integrate them into my system.  It has on the fly gain, phase control, delay, subharmonic extension, frequency slope adjustment and more.  I was constantly experimenting with adjustments and still am, but having on the fly adjustment is great.  Some of the best producers and engineers rolled the highs, as well as the lower end off and ruined good recordings.  Classical and some Country, as well as other genres have been consistent in having well produced recordings, but as I said, too many rolled the best part of the recording off.  It’s hard to add what was never there, but the DBX unit does a good job compensating.  

Started off with one, added another shortly thereafter with good success and a bit of trial and error.

It is essential that you choose a sub or subs with room correction for best results, if you do not otherwise already have RC elsewhere in your system at present. It is very effective at aiding in the integration process, especially one with an infinitely variable X-over point.