HI
You
@Pearljam5000 and your too often interesting topics... I hate you!
Although You are not on my Hate List, for that you need first, a good system... You are on the right path though... Just Pull the trigger... Please? Get yourself your favorite Genelec in Aluminum
, get one sub then a second and then a third, use GLM is you want to and, prepare yourself to be happy for a long time when the subwoofer and the mains are correctly integrated to each other and within the room...
Back to the topics at hand. I need to carefully read all the posts to reply correctly but here one thing I know from experience, anecdotic ... well almost, there are some measurements but ...
I discovered the works of Earl Geddes a bit late in my audiophile journey. From there I also realized that the Harman's people were/have been on similar path. I came to the realization that most
any speaker in most rooms require multiple subwoofers to provide proper and accurate reproduction of music. It comes from a few scientific facts among these:
The Room dominate the response in the bass.
The better way to have a smooth response in the bass is to use of multiple bass radiators aka subwoofers.
Room treatments in the bass are necessarily big and obtrusive, due to the considerable wavelengths at play.
Our hearing apparatus takes some time upward of 0 milliseconds to recognize a bass signals of 50 Hz. Thus the response in the can be considered to be steady state.
My anecdote. I presently use two subwoofers, I am going to 3 soon but am so satisfied with what I have that I don't feel the impetus to spend money on the other sub but I will in dues time
... I use 2 Dayton SUB-1500. These are linearized with a mniDSP 2x4 and this low-frequency system is presented to the AVR as one sub... One of the subwoofer is in the back of the room about 6 feet from the listening couch.. on one side wall about 6 feet from the back wall. Its output is considerable. The main speakers are crossed at 80 Hz... This sub is delayed by a substantial amount , I believe it to be 4 or more ms ... and Audyssey has decided that this subwoofer system (remember the AVR
thinks it is driving only one subwoofer) is at 5.19 meter from the listening position... One woofer is in the front at about 3 meters from the MLP and the other in its back at about 1.8 meter... Bass is one of the best I have heard, tight, taut and satisfying... I used to debate sealed vs Ported vs IB, vs bandpass and that kind of bass quality.. What I am getting floors me , almost every day... Integration took me almost a year (perhaps more, I prefer to foret
) of tinkering.
Conclusion.
Use good decent bookshelf speakers capable of superior output down to 60 Hz . And all the other important stuff such as directivity , low distortion, good power handling, extended FR but leave the bass to multiple subwoofer. It will cost you much less and if well done, will provide with you with a level of fidelity, full range are incapable of, limited that they are, by the laws of physics. It would be 10 to 100,000 Khz flat like an amplifier, in an anechoic room at 130 dB and 0.001% THD , once it comes in the room? ...... Hell.
Peace