Well, we don't really know what the headroom is of the "subwoofer" section, because the dB levels that Amir measured are based around 1kHz dB levels and the bass is rolled off below that point at lower SPL's therefore the distortion measurements in the bass aren't representative of if you EQ'd up the bass to make it linear with the rest of the response. I suppose you could try to extrapolate it, I'll try:
So first how much is the bass rolled off at different points:
- 70Hz is -3dB;
- 60Hz is -4dB
- 50Hz is -5dB
- 40Hz is -6dB
- 30Hz is -10dB
- 20Hz is -16dB
So for Amir's distortion results if you want to use EQ to boost the bass to Anechoic Flat at the various points, then to get 30Hz anechoic flat then you need to boost by 10dB which means you have to look at the 96dB distortion results (
View attachment 452904) rather than the 86dB distortion results, which means at 30Hz you have distortion at nearly the same level as the fundamental which is rubbish performance. Looking at another point 40Hz is 6dB down, so you'd have to EQ 40Hz up by 6dB, so looking at the distortion percentage results you'd probably be taking the 86dB performance graph and forcing the distortion off the scale of the following graph at 86dB:
View attachment 452909
Whereas a speaker like the Genelec 8361A is already anechoic flat at 40Hz and is outperforming this speaker re distortion:
View attachment 452911
So really, in conclusion I don't see this speaker having any significant bass headroom that you mention, at least not for the price. The Genelec is just $4995 in comparison and doesn't even have a seperate "subwoofer" yet still outperforms it. The roll off in the bass of this speaker is not a positive if you're gonna be using RoomEQ and it's not like this speaker has loads of headroom down low, I don't think it has much headroom down there at all.