Any of you guys listening to some good bass? High-end bass perhaps? Let me know! I may be in the market depending on how well this year’s plans go. But this forum is dead silent about subwoofers! I feel so in the dark about them. How do they scale? Are small Rel’s a scam? Are giant servo Hsu’s a scam? What’s the speaker to subwoofer ratio for cost? Etc etc
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Personally a big fan of subs in a system, specifically stereo subs as I think that offers much more benefits than one would typically expect vs a single sub (better spatiality and room information mainly, potentially better dynamics, along with the obvious better extension and impact).
I’ve had many subs in my systems in the past, I’ve had Sunfire, SVS, Rythmik, AudioKinesis, JL, and a few custom designs as well, but currently have settled on dual JL Fathom f113v2 and before that dual Rythmik F25.
Generally good subs aren’t cheap, I think they start to get good around 500 ish bucks and go up from there, many different sizes and tech are out there and I don’t think one type or size is inherently better than another, will just depend on the sub at hand. For what sub you might consider will really depend on your system, your room, and your goals (such as only looking for max boom and volume vs quality)
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I have 3 subs here, an SVS, an Infinity and a Polk, but they are setup for movie watching rather than 2CH. I also use one in my office with the Decware tiny radials to fill those out.
But I’m not a Bass head to me the best adjusted subwoofer (for music) is one you can’t hear.
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Ah yeah, HT vs hifi subs is another thing to consider since they are sometimes tuned differently or have different priorities.
On the note of integration for subs, that can sometimes be a challenge, in terms of setting the LPF, gain, and phase, in terms of placement (although for stereo dual subs I find it’s easier than just a mono single sub), and in terms of room treatment, all things that need to be considered.
I personally actually don’t cut bass from my main speakers with a sub, I continue to let the speakers play full range, but this is mainly only something I do in the higher end, as I find that most of the ways you can use to HPF the speaker cause more sonic degradation than the benefits of cutting those lower frequencies. But for more budget or midrange speakers that’s less an issue imo
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FWIW this is generally the recommended approach for Hi-Fi listening, adding a crossover just doesn’t provide a win, you match the sub to the natural rolloff of the speaker.
However with some smaller designs there is a big enough win not having the speakers trying to reproduce the sub bass, that it’s no longer true.
Some active designs also include digital crossovers, so there is no loss there to use the speakers built in sub out and digital crossover if it has one.
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The biggest benefit I’ve had with the JLs are that they are self calibrating, you just position the measurement mic and the sub adjusts itself to the room, and it only required minimal tweaking after that
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How do you feel about aux connection vs speaker level connection for subs?
It all depends on your other source gear setup. If your using a preamp + power amp situation, you can go either way. If you want the subs to take on more signature of the preamp, you can split the output of the pre (or if it has multiple out use that), or if you want the subs to take on more character of the power amp, you can use speaker level inputs. Generally I do think more often than not using speaker level will more properly match the overall sound to the speakers, but again it will depend on the system. For my setup, I thought it was more satisfactory to split off my preamp, but in an older setup I had I liked it off speaker taps more. Also depends on how well the speaker amp handles having another load on it, the quality of the inputs on the sub vs each other, and the cabling used as well
If you are rocking an integrated setup with no preamp out, you don’t really have a choice and will have to use speaker level lol
Well you know my situation already (Octave V40 SE), so in my case I have a quality integrated with preamp outs, guess I can just listen for myself.
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Yep I’d just experiment with it and see what works better
Speaking of, how has the octave been? Perhaps an octave thread needs to be created as well now that I think about it
A lot less information out there on subwoofers as compared to speakers. Sealed, ported, servo, sub direction, array of subs, you name it, there’s contradicting information out there.
There’s also the debate of whether you buy a sub from your speaker manufacturer or do you buy a sub from a sub manufacturer.
IMO, set up for subs is far more important than “best sub” once you get past the level of good enough quality.
If you do everything right, then you won’t even hear the sub in your system… until you remove it from your system.
It’s been great! It’s been so long that’s it’s my new normal though so I don’t really have a reference to compare it to. What I can say is that I think I’m at a point where the room/positioning is going to be hindering performance more than my gear, I definitely trust the Octave as the heart of my system. It sounds so good especially if I leave it on for a while. Hopefully, this town home plan my GF and I have will go through and my setup will have no TV between it or a nearby side wall anymore…
I definitely agree that sub placement makes a huge difference. In my last living space I had two large cheapo subs I got from facebook marketplace. It makes all the difference to have 2 subs helping out a pair of bookshelves. But now I have Forte IV’s and I’m be wary of simply buying an under-$1K SVS sub and calling it a day! Still got a while before a have the funds so I have some time to research.
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In a different timeline, there’s a me that bought one of these.
I was really considering one of those, but just figured it would end up being a handicap in my system regardless
It’s clearly something that’s not NEEDED, but it does look like it would go a long way towards assuring clean integration.
But at your level of gear it would prob be a bottleneck. lol It’s a real attempt at a good solution and I appreciate that from vendors.
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Pretty sure Wilson audio also has a higher end crossover box for their systems too
I think the crossover is such a small part of the integration problem, it might help, especially if your speakers don’t play well with extreme bass notes, but realistically placement and room treatments are such a big part of the puzzle. the Bass in my office varies at some frequencies by 20dB’s if I move the measurement mic 2ft.
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Question as for today I will venture into the world of dual (stereo) sub implementation for my 2-CH system.
Do I run a left and right RCA to the sub and leave the other channel of the sub without a connection? Most subs have a L+R input so am I leaving performance on the table if I don’t use a splitter to connect both RCA inputs for both subs?
I know from my old car stereo days that there were such a thing as dual voice coil subs where you’d connect both left + right. But I don’t think subs used here have two sets of power leads. So the amp must combine them or something and you’re just still getting one channel despite having a left and right input.
I guess my question is, am I leaving half the power of the plat am untapped by not using an RCA splitter?
I’ll start with the fact that I don’t have a REL sub and don’t own two subs, but I happen to have been reading REL manuals on their website when I saw your post LOL. Even though I probably won’t have the funds for a new 2.1 desktop setup for least 6 months, I’ve already started my fantasy shopping.
Is there a reason you’re not connecting using speaker wire, since that’s REL’s recommendation? Using speaker wire, they recommend that each sub is only connected to one channel, so if you need to use RCA, I wonder if that translates.
Connecting a Stereo Pair of RELs High Level To A Single Amplifier | REL.
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Yes, because my INT has a sub out and even though both subs I have support high level input, I think the additional wiring is not something I want to live it. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t use it at some point as a just to try it out thing.
On the Rel, there’s only one input channel so the question is more about subs that have two input channels.