Rythmik L12 Subwoofer Review

[Abe_W]

Yeah, Paul is a nice guy but he's about the last person I'd go to for advice on integrating subs.

Or you could just say you're implementing the Geddes method--that sounds better . I agree this can certainly work well if done right and you have the speakers for it.

Right right....And you know more about this than Paul indeed! How many dofs do you have for your sub dude? Let's see,,, a volume control, crossover and lousy lil 0/180 phase flip switch on most subs out there. It's a bit more with a Rythmik, i suppose. And you will integrate it better than a speaker designer could?? when he's starting from the ground up on a speaker's design. Man, such confidence oozing from the ignoramiiiii these days...lol

 

[Thomas savage]

Can we remain friendly please, present course of this thread is down hill .

 

[pozz]

Not sure if these have been posted before:

• http://www.rythmikaudio.com/phase1.html
• http://www.rythmikaudio.com/phase2.html
• http://www.rythmikaudio.com/phase3.html

Part two contains examples of speakers and measurements of integration effects.

 

[Jon AA]

Right right....And you know more about this than Paul indeed! ..... And you will integrate it better than a speaker designer could?? when he's starting from the ground up on a speaker's design. Man, such confidence oozing from the ignoramiiiii these days...lol

I'm terribly sorry if it shatters your world to hear that not everybody in the 2-channel Hi-Fi industry knows everything about products they do not sell and their customers by and large do not use.

How many dofs do you have for your sub dude? Let's see,,, a volume control, crossover and lousy lil 0/180 phase flip switch on most subs out there. It's a bit more with a Rythmik, i suppose.

The "dofs" offered by DSP integration can be substantially to infinitely greater than the above. None of Paul's products offer this capability. Here he explains why:

The primary reason given--that amplifiers all "sound different" and sending the high level signal from your unique amplifier to the sub ensures that its signature sound is also given to the sub, therefore it will blend better with the speaker because it will take on the same character of that unique amplifier...is, I'm sorry, but simply ludicrous. Even if one accepts that we'd hear a difference between amplifiers on the main speakers, our ears are simply not that discerning below 50 Hz. At those frequencies you want lots of power--it can be Class D and it can be cheap--no, you won't hear a difference. Any concern beyond that is a waste of money.

Setting that aside, he always recommends running the main speakers full range and only adding in the sub where they roll off. As I stated in the "High-pass for mains" thread, this is a legitimate way of doing it and it can offer good results for many people depending upon their setup. However that won't be most people, especially those using bookshelves (as the questioner in this and other videos have) that will distort a large amount (relative to a good sub) at those frequencies when played at a decent volume. Most of these people will find better results by using an actual crossover that high-passes the mains.

One of the first things I always recommend to those who want to get the best integration--and avoid being an "ignoramiiiii"--is to get a microphone and learn how to use it.

It's not likely one will arrive at the optimum for his system in his room shooting blind. Without measuring, people will have no idea how much room for improvement there might be. There's simply no way to figure out the best combination of settings for an actual set of speakers and sub once placed in a real room without measuring and comparing different settings. I don't think I've seen him ever recommend doing this, usually eschewing measurements instead.

If you review Rythmik's own tutorial pozz posted above, you can see how different setups can give wildly different results and how these can be seen with measurements--as well as how they can be corrected with the DSP offered in even low-level AVRs.

And finally, you'll probably find agreement of 99% of the people here that EQ can be particularly helpful in the bass frequencies. None of his products offer this ability and I've never heard him recommend doing it.

As said above, none of this is meant to be a slight toward him or his company--he seems like a nice guy and I'm sure his products are outstanding. I was simply stating there's a whole world of possibilities when it comes to sub integration that are clearly not his area of expertise, so the advice he gives in this area isn't necessarily the final word on what's going to be best for most peoples' setups.

 

[Abe_W]

@Jon AA , Paul, of course, will get into the audiophool koolaid domain about running a amp's high level inputs into the sub to preserve the amp's sound signature (REL magic)! The only point i wish to make is Paul's suggestion on running the mains full range and "blending in" a sub (where the mains roll off without usage of dsp/bass management/crossover) is less damaging than the latter. Some guy who has a 4000 dollar dac is gonna sht himself before he introduces another ADC/DAC in the chain just to get bass management (we're talking about $$$$ 2 channel systems here).

If you were to think of a subwoofer's driver as another driver/an extension of the drivers in your mains, you have very few DoFs available (a volume control, crap crossover and a lousy li'l 0/180 phase flip switch, that's it!) on your sub for that level of seamless integration. A speaker designer designing it from the ground up has a lot more available.

If you're talking about your success on a receiver with bass management or some DSP ....and your REW measurements helped you get a flat line, knock yourself out, hurrah, hurrah....we're not talking about the same thing...

 

[richard12511]

Some guy who has a 4000 dollar dac is gonna sht himself before he introduces another ADC/DAC in the chain just to get bass management (we're talking about $$$$ 2 channel systems here).

I agree, but it's an illogical sht, as bass management will improve the overall sound far more than any DAC(at any price) will.

If you were to think of a subwoofer's driver as another driver/an extension of the drivers in your mains, you have very few DoFs available (a volume control, crap crossover and a lousy li'l 0/180 phase flip switch, that's it!) on your sub for that level of seamless integration. A speaker designer designing it from the ground up has a lot more available.

A speaker designer also has far more limitations. The biggest limitation, and one that far outweighs any advantages they may have with driver/cabinet/crossover integration, is that they (generally) must put the bass driver directly above or below the mid and high drivers. For the majority of homes, the best speaker designer on Earth has no hope of making better sounding/integrated bass than even a moderately skilled end user if that speaker designer is forced to abide by the rule of colocating the bass with the rest of the cabinet. The best we've seen is the stuff from Kii and D&D(imo), but even those force you to position them near walls, and still can't compete with 4 freely placed subs and a proper crossover.

At the bass frequencies, you're hearing the room far more than you're hearing the speakers. The speaker designer is massively limited in what he can do by the fact that he can only adjust the sound of the speaker, which accounts for the minority of what is heard. The end user has the huge advantage of being able to adjust the room, which accounts for the majority of what is heard. Therefore, end users(assuming they can measure and have placement flexibility) will almost always be able to achieve better bass integration than any speaker designer will.

 

[Jon AA]

The only point i wish to make is Paul's suggestion on running the mains full range and "blending in" a sub (where the mains roll off without usage of dsp/bass management/crossover) is less damaging than the latter.

And my point is this is false. When properly integrated with DSP at a low crossover point, you have a better chance of the sub "blending in" such that you don't "hear the sub" because you have a better chance of doing it properly.

Some guy who has a 4000 dollar dac is gonna sht himself before he introduces another ADC/DAC in the chain just to get bass management (we're talking about $$$$ 2 channel systems here).

And that's his own fault. He's putting those limitations on himself. Ever notice how many audiophiles don't like subs? Maybe it has something to do with never having them integrated properly.

A speaker designer designing it from the ground up has a lot more available.

And what exactly is Paul designing "from the ground up" to make this happen? His amplifiers don't follow the same rules as everybody elses'? You keep referring to him as a speaker designer, but as of yet they do not sell any speakers.

If you're talking about your success on a receiver with bass management or some DSP ....and your REW measurements helped you get a flat line, knock yourself out, hurrah, hurrah....we're not talking about the same thing...

Integrating a subwoofer is integrating a subwoofer. What exactly are the "different things" you think we're talking about?

 

[richard12511]

Ever notice how many audiophiles don't like subs? Maybe it has something to do with never having them integrated properly.

I think this is a big part of it. There's also probably a bit of expectation bias and/or placebo going on. I think the myth is finally starting to fade a bit, but even just a decade ago when I first got into audio, it seemed like the generally accepted advice was 2.0 is best for music. Even people who had invested large amounts of money and time into decent sub setups would say they listened to music in 2.0, and that's what they would suggest to others. I think the majority is now starting to realize that multiple well integrated subs can be a great part of even a pure music system.

More generally, today's audiophiles - at least to me - seem (fortunately) more accepting of audio science, and the trend seems to be going more and more that way. There are still corners of audio forums out there (like the AVS 2 channel forum) where the science is still pretty heavily lambasted, but those corners seem to be shrinking in size.

 

[soccermommy]

Looking for some advice. Would it be better to get 2 L12’s or 1 F12SE ? My room is a big 40ft x 20ft x 15ft “L” shape.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Ever notice how many audiophiles don't like subs? Maybe it has something to do with never having them integrated properly.

I'm sure that is an important reason, if not THE most important reason.
We have an Audiophile shop here, where you can demo 10K+ speakers. They do not have measuring equipment and while they sell uber expensive cables I seriously doubt they ever used DSP such as Dirac. As such, if I go to the store to demo a sub+speaker system, the subs WILL sound like crap. Even if they are really good, expensive units.

My friend has a small sub for movies and we both were interested about making it work for music. We spent a lot of time trying but it took me finding this forum, learning about REW/Dirac, getting a UMIK to finally be able to integrate it. It was hilarious how much time trying to integrate it "blindly" was surpassed and left in the dust with only 5 minutes of measuring for the Dirac demo. Suddenly, even his small budget sub "disappeared". No more boominess, no more "Oh yeah, that's the note where the sub starts to kick in, can you hear it?".

Given audiophiles obsession about "purity" and "avoiding any processing of the signal they can" it's no wonder that they shun subwoofers.

On a personal note: I have been fighting with myself over whether to get a sub for my system (Focal Aria 906, music use only as movie LFE effects are impractical in an apartment) for half a year now. I still don't know what to do and whether adding a sub would be an improvement or present me with a host of new problems I spend a ton of time to fix (if I can fix them).

 

[DonH56]

Looking for some advice. Would it be better to get 2 L12’s or 1 F12SE ? My room is a big 40ft x 20ft x 15ft “L” shape.

Soundwise that is going to be a challenging room and two L12 or F12 won't "pressurize" it. It is very large and 20' and 40' dimensions are multiples so "double up" room modes. For smoothing the sound, two subs is almost alway better than one, assuming you can place the second sub to help compensate. If you have budget and/or size constraints, and plan to use an AVR/AVP or external processor (e.g. miniDSP), then two L12's would be my choice. That assumes you do not need the extra control features of the F12(SE).

HTH - Don

 

[KaiserSoze]

As others have implied, this is a useless and scientifically wrong approach to understanding a subwoofer. The speed at which it rises is governed by the bandwidth - which is necessarily confined by the low pass filter. Holding steady is a function of its x-max. In order to maintain a constant pressure the cone must move at a constant speed. So the sound pressure at which a constant pressure can be maintained is nothing more than a function of the desired pressure, the period of the signal and the driver's x-max.

To a large extent, unlike ordinary speakers, a subwoofer is characterisable by nothing more than the basic physical parameters of the driver and the box. The ubiquitous Thiele-Small parameters and the box alignment. What we are likely to see in most of the tests is a validation of the TS parameters and box design. Where it will get interesting is where it uncovers simple lies from the manufacturer: deficiencies in the amplification and filters, poor box construction, for vented boxes issues with things like vent noise, and maybe driver distortion.

To be useful a sub needs to have little to no output above its operating range, otherwise it starts to cause problems with localisation - that is you can localise it. Usually with a pretty steep (ie 4th order) crossover at 80Hz. Port noise, rattles, resonances and distortion products will be localised. Localisation of distortion products is an interesting issue, as that maybe more important than the perceptual influence of those products on the sound quality.

What it tells you is that you don't want the sub to reproduce much at all above the crossover frequency. Hence any idea of reproducing square waves is a really bad idea. It harks back to such nonsense as 'fast' bass.

This is an interesting mix of correct notions and some notions that are otherwise. When you say, "Holding steady is a function of its x-max ... to maintain constant pressure the cone must move at a constant speed ... the sound pressure at which constant pressure can be maintained". The last part is especially curious, i.e., "...the pressure at which constant pressure can be maintained..." I can't tell for certain, but it sounds like you're suggesting that the constant pressure associated with the flat top of a square should be produced by the diaphragm continuing to move at constant velocity so as to maintain constant pressure. If I misinterpreted what you meant I apologize, but if this isn't what you meant, I have no idea what you meant. In any case this is not correct. A square wave consists of course of an infinite Fourier sum of sine waves that collectively are equivalent to the square wave. The fundamental in this series is a sine wave with the same period as the square wave. Under no circumstances is the subwoofer diaphragm required to continue moving at constant velocity to maintain the high pressure for the flat top of a square wave. A square wave that has a flat top that remains flat for more than half the period of a 20 Hz sine wave has a subsonic fundamental frequency and will not be accurately reproduced unless the subwoofer has the subsonic capability needed to do so.

Also, this may be splitting hairs, but I would not say that in order for a sub to be useful it needs to have little or nor output above its operating range. I would say that the low-pass needs to do what it is supposed to do, which is obviously the correct requirement and clearer of intent vs. reference to "operating range", which is somewhat ambiguous and could be interpreted to mean the full bandwidth of the subwoofer without respect to the low-pass filter.

 

[KaiserSoze]

The feedback loop is attempting to linearise the relationship between cone velocity and input voltage. So, in order to use an accelerometer you need to integrate the acceleration. This of necessity means a lag over a direct velocity sensor (such as magnetic coil.) Where this matters is in the design of the feedback loop. The additional lag means your stability margin is lessened, and you cannot use as much feedback.

The patent on the sub design explicitly references using either direct velocity of accelerometers, so is covering the bases. But there is clear value if you can get a good direct velocity signal. Things are never clear cut, and I can imagine difficulties in avoiding cross coupling between the voice coil and velocity sensing coil making the choice less clear in achieving a good outcome. Engineering is always a mix of such questions.

Certainly it is correct that you have to integrate acceleration to obtain velocity. But why would it be correct to "linearize" the relationship between cone velocity and input voltage? In the theoretical model that underlies all dynamic drivers the diaphragm produces a sine wave when it is fed a sine wave. In order to reproduce a sine wave the instantaneous displacement or excursion of the diaphragm has to trace out a sine wave. There are two forces acting on the moving part of the driver: the electrodynamic force and the restoring force which includes the force due to the acoustic pressure. If the restoring force is linearly related to displacement, as it approximately is for a limited range of cone displacement, and if the electrodynamic force is linearly related to the applied voltage, as it approximately is for a limited range of cone displacement (while the coil/gap overlap remains constant and the inductance of the coil remains appreciably constant), then the displacement of the diaphragm will be linearly related to voltage. It is thus likely that what is required is for the voltage generated in the velocity sensing coil to be integrated before comparison to the input signal. It also seems to me that integrating the cone velocity and comparing this to the input signal is equivalent to differentiating the input signal and comparing this to the velocity. Integration or differentiation is equivalent to phase shifting and is accomplished by way of a simple filter either analog or digital. Since velocity is the derivative of displacement, the velocity of the cone at any instant should be equivalent to the derivative of the input signal, and thereby to the input signal shifted in phase by 90 degrees.

"This of necessity means a lag over a direct velocity sensor (such as magnetic coil.)"

Do you mean a time delay associated with digital processing? Or something that happens whenever you integrate a function of time? Anything that happens inherently when you integrate a function of time is something that has to happen; otherwise the integration wouldn't be correct. If the integration is done in the analog domain, the only time-domain effects are effects that are inherent to the integration itself. The integration is instantaneous, in other words, except for the effect of stray capacitance and inductance that shouldn't be there and that will mess up the integration if it is there. If you're referring to processing delay in the digital domain, it is highly likely that the processing speed would be so fast that any computational delay introduced would be entirely negligible.

 

[raistlin65]

Ever notice how many audiophiles don't like subs? Maybe it has something to do with never having them integrated properly.

LOL I almost spit out my tea. So true.

And I love how audiophiles buy two REL subs so that they can get "stereo bass." Wire them up without bass management. And position them for that and so it looks nice without a concern for room modes. Then they proclaim how great it sounds without having measured a thing.

 

[richard12511]

LOL I almost spit out my tea. So true.

And I love how audiophiles buy two REL subs so that they can get "stereo bass." Wire them up without bass management. And position them for that and so it looks nice without a concern for room modes. Then they proclaim how great it sounds without having measured a thing.

Small subs(like those from REL), with no bass management are required for "tight, musical bass"

 

[echopraxia]

A speaker designer also has far more limitations. The biggest limitation, and one that far outweighs any advantages they may have with driver/cabinet/crossover integration, is that they (generally) must put the bass driver directly above or below the mid and high drivers. For the majority of homes, the best speaker designer on Earth has no hope of making better sounding/integrated bass than even a moderately skilled end user if that speaker designer is forced to abide by the rule of colocating the bass with the rest of the cabinet.

Ever notice how many audiophiles don't like subs? Maybe it has something to do with never having them integrated properly.

I think a lot of people here who spend hours fiddling with DSP to perfectly integrate their subs acknowledge both of these facts independently:

• In the majority of rooms, the optimal position for subwoofers are rarely the same as the optimal position of your mains.
• The vast majority of people fail to integrate separate subwoofers with main speakers correctly, because doing so is non-trivial.

But I think most people fail to integrate both these facts to their natural conclusion:

• The majority of the time, a full range stereo pair actually does sound better in reality (and this is what actually matters)! Because the vast majority of the time, people will not have enough time, effort, and audio engineering skill dedicated to "properly integrate" their subs as a skilled audio engineer might.
• It's wrong to blame customers for this. Recognizing the reality, the natural conclusion is that we need products that fix this.

Bass management built into AVRs have/had the promise of fixing this, but in reality the most popular ones fail to do so. Audessy for example does not seem to apply a very pleasant target room curve, and will try to equalize the entire frequency range unless I figure out that I have to go buy some obscure phone app, and then know that I need to set a limit to the room correction so that it doesn't mess with the frequencies above the Schroeder frequency. Without these extra manual steps, room correction on most AVRs make the system sound significantly worse due to trying to equalize the chaotic treble response which was not measured with anything remotely resembling an MMM measurement.

I suppose I need to download and fiddle around with that Audessy app now, because I recently just realized that on three independent rooms I have with speakers + subwoofers, NONE of them can reproduce some bass sounds with the clarity that my stereo pair of Genelec 8351B's can, as I described in more detail here. And this advantage of the 8351B's applies with and without room correction.

Why is this? I've measured my mains+subs and the FR curve is quite flat down to 10hz IIRC (I'll have to dig up the measurement files to confirm). So what's wrong? Maybe something wrong with the phase integration of my subs and mains? Maybe with many hours of fiddling with a miniDSP and UMIK-1 and REW I can solve it. Maybe I'll find the time to do that some weekend.

But ultimately, this is a problem that we need to acknowledge as something that should be solved with integrated speaker products/systems, not just endlessly blaming the end user for not being a full-fledged audio engineer or speaker designer just because they don't understand the subtleties of Schroeder frequencies, FIR vs IIR filters, room modes, MMM vs fixed mic frequency sweeps, DSP corrections for phase and how it may or may not be important in subwoofer integration, etc. It's just riduclous to expect everyone to learn so many technical details just to get a subwoofer properly integrated.

 

[richard12511]

I think a lot of people here who spend hours fiddling with DSP to perfectly integrate their subs acknowledge both of these facts independently:

• In the majority of rooms, the optimal position for subwoofers are rarely the same as the optimal position of your mains.
• The vast majority of people fail to integrate separate subwoofers with main speakers correctly, because doing so is non-trivial.

But I think most people fail to integrate both these facts to their natural conclusion:

• The VAST majority of people will not have enough time, effort, and audio engineering skill dedicated to properly integrating subs, to the point that very often a stereo full range pair does sound better in reality.
• It's wrong to blame customers for this. Recognizing the reality, the natural conclusion is that we need products that fix this.

Bass management built into AVRs have/had the promise of fixing this, but in reality the most popular ones fail to do so. Audessy for example does not seem to apply a very pleasant target room curve, and will try to equalize the entire frequency range unless I figure out that I have to go buy some obscure phone app, and know that I need to set a limit to the room correction so that it doesn't mess with the frequencies above the Schroeder frequency.

I suppose I need to download and fiddle around with that Audessy app now, because I recently just realized that on three independent rooms I have with speakers + subwoofers, NONE of them can reproduce some bass sounds with the clarity that my stereo pair of Genelec 8351B's can, as I described in more detail here. And this advantage of the 8351B's applies with and without room correction.

Why is this? I've measured my mains+subs and the FR curve is quite flat down to 10hz IIRC (I'll have to dig up the measurement files to confirm). So what's wrong? Maybe something wrong with the phase integration of my subs and mains? Maybe with many hours of fiddling with a miniDSP and UMIK-1 and REW I can solve it. Maybe I'll find the time to do that some weekend.

But ultimately, this is a problem that we need to acknowledge as something that should be solved with integrated speaker products/systems, not just endlessly blaming the end user for not being a full-fledged audio engineer or speaker designer just because they don't understand the subtleties of Schroeder frequencies, FIR vs IIR filters, room modes, DSP corrections for phase and how it may or may not be important in subwoofer integration, etc.

I don't really think it takes all that much skill or expertise(I don't have much expertise, and I've been able to do it in several systems now), more so it just takes time, and the willingness to measure.

The Genelec thing is interesting, as I don't think those guys are doing anything special with bass(correct me if I'm wrong) like you see with the Kii or D&D, so it seems more like a room issue than a speaker issue. I would expect any similarly sized monitor with similar extension to exhibit the same bass response as the Genelec. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I know they do cardioid bass for their subs, but I thought the ones were just simple, basic subs. The integration thing could be a phase/timing issue. I was able to solve this with a miniDSP 2x4 HD that lets you adjust delay for each device, but before that I was also able to solve it by adjusting the delay knobs on the back of my JTR subs.

 

[echopraxia]

I don't really think it takes all that much skill or expertise(I don't have much expertise, and I've been able to do it in several systems now), more so it just takes time, and the willingness to measure.

The Genelec thing is interesting, as I don't think those guys are doing anything special with bass(correct me if I'm wrong) like you see with the Kii or D&D, so it seems more like a room issue than a speaker issue. I would expect any similarly sized monitor with similar extension to exhibit the same bass response as the Genelec. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I know they do cardioid bass for their subs, but I thought the ones were just simple, basic subs. The integration thing could be a phase/timing issue. I was able to solve this with a miniDSP 2x4 HD that lets you adjust delay for each device, but before that I was also able to solve it by adjusting the delay knobs on the back of my JTR subs.

Yeah actually I think it is just a room issue. I haven't DSP'ed my larger room, and I dug up my old REW recording (of Revel F206 + dual Rythmik F18s) and the bass response is definitely not very flat (edit: updated vertical scale to be similar to the Genelec plot below):

Versus my Genelec setup in a small room with really bad acoustics, but not that bad bass response <100hz (before or after EQ):

Certainly seems like this could explain it. I don't know how good or bad the bass response is in the other two rooms I tried the sound clip in, though.

Still, I just don't think this is fair to say it doesn't take much skill/expertise to use MiniDSP + REW + Umik mics to the point that we should expect everyone to do it. In my case I'm just lazy to have not messed with MiniDSP for my subs in the larger room, but the software here is NOT intuitive, and I could imagine for someone older than myself or not very familiar with computers having an extremely rough time. Even for me, it's not at all clear how to use REW or to program a MiniDSP. There are many steps to use REW, generate DSP filters, export those into a compatible format, import those into MiniDSP software, use MiniDSP software to connect to the MiniDSP and program the config so that it applies correctly to the input/output channels in the way you need it to. And none of these steps are very obvious in how to use them successfully, without extensive documentation or experimentation.

Of course it's "easy" once you've done it and know how to do it, but that's not my point -- my point is this is extremely inaccessible and difficult to learn/use for the vast majority of people who are not engineers.

 

[HooStat]

It's just riduclous to expect everyone to learn so many technical details just to get a subwoofer properly integrated.

Yet another reason it is difficult. Why spend that much time for something most people will do ONCE? (Of course some people want to tweak/learn, have multiple systems, or want to help friends - that is a different situation.)

Better software and guides would be immensely helpful. I just started playing with my sub and I was quickly reminded what I hated about the process. And I have just done the most basic setup with the built-in software on the JL Audio sub. It doesn't really sound good either. Which means that if others in my house don't like it, it will be hard to argue for another sub. Hence, it is in the best interest of sub manufacturers to help people get this right (assuming I am not the only one in this situation).

 

[sigbergaudio]

I see this thread is slightly old, but I think there are some really good points in the last few posts. I happen to have been around visiting a lot of people listening to their setups lately, and there are a couple of pretty striking findings that confirm a lot of what is being said here.

1. Almost no one has a basic understanding of the settings on their sub, or how they're supposed to set them when everything is now basically handeled by their receivers.
2. Many don't understand that they have to re-run calibration if they move stuff. Some even move to a different house and still don't re-run the calibration. They think they've calibrated for the system, not the room.
3. Most receivers do all sorts of weird things (way too low crossovers, set speakers to large that has no business being set to large)
4. Almost no one goes to the length of manually measuring in their room because why would they. A dwindling minority has that kind of interest in these things.
5. Everyone gets personally insulted if someone (or a receiver) implies that their speakers are anything but large. Which means they put at least their main speakers, and often also the center if it is even moderately sized, to Large. Which is a bad idea. But who would admit to have SMALL speakers? Calling this small/large is the worst naming ever. It should have been "enable / disable crossver" or something.
6. The user interface of most room calibration systems are horrible, obviously designed by engineers, leaving Average Joe scratching his head trying to figure it out. And don't ask him to read the manual of the receiver. It's like 60 pages with a tiny font and 90% of it is useless information and / or incomprehensible to the aforementioned Average Joe.
   
   So I can confirm that most people who have subs don't have very good sounding systems. Because they've been unable to properly integrate it, and as mentioned by others - as a consequence of this they typically don't even use their subs for music, because it sounds better without it. Which is sad, because it could have sounded awesome if they've been able to set it up properly. So there's a pretty big potential here if we're able to somehow make this whole process more intuitive.