And the small Neumann KH 120 with EQ and Sub has 9.1 preference score... so this tells us all or nothing.
Again: not all of us are able to place a big 3 way (or 4 or x way for that matter) speaker in our living room and obviously even smaller 2 way designs can sound beautiful if used within their limits. To get more spl, bass extension or dynamic just add one or two woofers, if you have room for them.
I suppose I could perfectly live with about the 39 Hz the KH 150 provides (should be slightly deeper in room) since I only hear stereo music (no TV or HT). If not I would add 1 or 2 KH 750: done!
The score with Sub rating is theoretical score with a “perfect sub”. That is, it removes the low frequency limitation of the speaker, and takes it all the way down to 16Hz. Like if you have the theoretical ideal subwoofer.
In practice, integrating a subwoofer into a room is a non-trivial task, that involves measurements, creating another crossover point, finely tuned in-room measurements, and linearising phase and thus removing group delay.
If that sounds like a whole bunch of gobbledygook, it’s because that is what loudspeaker designer or on-location sound engineers do when they design big 3 or 4 ways, or integrate multi subwoofers into the performance venue. And they don’t even have to deal with your room (designing for anechoic or outdoors)
Have you ever noticed how many home audio enthusiasts might prefer listening to music without subs, but have subs on with movies? It’s not because music doesn’t have sub-bass (it does) it’s because sometimes when having the subwoofer(s) on, it doesn’t always sound quite right. They don’t have the “ideal subwoofer”
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