Some members (Timber_MG and me, him more than me) have been going on about bass problems in typical listening rooms and ways of solving them with multiple subwoofers. Many people don't realize how bad bass response in their listening room can be until seeing some real measurements. Here is a write-up of the Geddes method of smoothing bass response with multiple subs. It shows measured room responses with:
* Just the mains
* One, two or three subs added to the mains.
Note that there is overlap between the mains and the subs when this method is applied optimally.
http://www.mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/
The response ripple for the mains only case is 24dB which far exceeds any other anomaly in your reproduction chain. In fact, I don't think it can really be called high fidelity. The response with three subs is much smoother below 100Hz. Between 100Hz and 200Hz some serious ripple persists but keep in mind it includes the floor reflection dip which we interpret as natural sounding, and some would argue, we need for natural height perception.
These results confirm that the room dominates bass response and that one should first address room or acoustics issues before spending a lot of money on expensive subs. More subs of lower quality seem to offer better end results. A combination of bass traps / multiple subs should also offer good results.
* Just the mains
* One, two or three subs added to the mains.
Note that there is overlap between the mains and the subs when this method is applied optimally.
http://www.mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/
The response ripple for the mains only case is 24dB which far exceeds any other anomaly in your reproduction chain. In fact, I don't think it can really be called high fidelity. The response with three subs is much smoother below 100Hz. Between 100Hz and 200Hz some serious ripple persists but keep in mind it includes the floor reflection dip which we interpret as natural sounding, and some would argue, we need for natural height perception.
These results confirm that the room dominates bass response and that one should first address room or acoustics issues before spending a lot of money on expensive subs. More subs of lower quality seem to offer better end results. A combination of bass traps / multiple subs should also offer good results.
