Subwoofer: should we even use them at all?

"What JM said. Subs rarely sound right and you are much better off with a well designed full range speaker"

These words I said for a long time as well. I never thought that I could be statified and even owning a subwoofer for stereo use.

So what did change my opinion?

When I did test subwoofers in all those years ( 16 years of time) I was often not satisfied with the integration. There were Always music numbers were you could hear that the timing was not perfect. Everywhere I came ( shows and clients) I heard the same limitations. For a perfectionist there is no room for this. Why? Because I get irritated by every single limitation. It is Always my way of working to eliminate every single limitation in a set.

When I bought the Monitor Audio PLW-15 I understand directly that the response is a lot faster than most other subwoofer. The PLW-15 is a very difficult subwoofer to control.

Audyssey did solve the control problems I had with the PLW-15. You can have a very fast subwoofer, but this is no garantee for success.

Audyssey Pro gave me the freedom to control and make it fully integrated with the speakers. This is what I call stealth integration.

Purist Powercable and the new Audioquest Wild Dog pure silver subcable puts it even to a higher level.

But the remarks to use it to a higher freq. level did change it also a lot. These days I use it from 16hz till 140 hz. Blending goes to a new level. You need to hear it before you can believe it.

I had a few surround specialists and also different clients with highend sets who are amazed by the level of integration.

When I put it off you loose it all. When you use it till 140 hz the subwoofers has a much more important part in the overall sound.

I understand the thoughts of most people overhere about integration. But now stealth inegration is possible.

It is not easy to create, it did cost me many tests, time and thinking to create it. But now it is here. A few people in the audio business say; you have to do something with it. You have to let it hear to other people. I am thinking about a way to make it known.

The conventional subwoofer is full of massive compromise in design -overly small cabinet, drivers with massive excursion, requiring huge power and room boundary reinforcement to produce bass. The excursion causes poor transient response extra distortion and reduction of bass detail. The massive power yields thermal compression due to voice coil heating. Having to place so sub can have room boundary reinforcement again causes issue with time arrival, integration etc. Great for high profit but not the best way to generate low frequencies. I myself prefer bass systems- towers, bass horns, IB bass etc over conventional cub sub.

I also tried numerous sub set ups and was never quite satisfied with the synergy to the main speakers. I'm sure there are Agon members much smarter than I that figure out the correct components, set up....
I went a different route. I had a pair of 3-way speakers built with Usher drivers. Uses one 8 inch woofer. Overall very happy with the speakers but found the bass to be a bit lite for some of the rock music I listen to.
I worked closely with the speaker builder tossing some ideas around.
I had him build a second pair of speakers - passive subs using the same 8 inch Usher woofer. The crossover has a very tapered slope and three cross over points. On the back side of the speaker I have three positive taps, one for each cross over point. I drive these speakers from the second set of preamp outs then through an Emotiva control freak (attenuator)- then to a separate Emotiva XPA-200 amplifer.

I love this set up since it provides close to the flexibility of a subwoofer set up but without synergy concerns. Main speakers run full range through a separate amp.
The passive sub cross over's slope is so gentle it ends up filling out the entire bass region, not just the lowest octave. When dialed in correctly the blend is seamless. So much better than any subwoofer set up I've used. The whole set up was cheaper versus the pricey Velodyne I purchased previous to this set up. Gives me flexibility for different source material too.

Every single tool has his limitations. Horn loudspeakers are not able to give a physical inimate image. Even when people would gave me 100 dollar each day I would not listen to this in my house.

You can go on and on about everything!

The limitation of Velodyne subwoofers is their response. They need to use lighter and faster material. Even that it can play loud and has a lot of dynamics. It is still not fast enough. With a few simple stereo test this comes to the surface quite easy.