Because a dual driver subwoofer of that size should be able to go quite low, unless SPL was prioritized, so if people keep saying it's "not a subwoofer" and they mean that as "It's a thing but subtract the performance of a subwoofer because it shouldn't be used too deep or won't easily reach 20hz and lower" then it sounds like SPL was the goal, which was also the goal with the new 1" drivers in The Ones, none of which go as deep as the original 8260 which has the tightest and most extended frequency response of any speaker they've every made from the measurements I've seen.
Hopefully people mean it's not as sub as in, "it's more than a subwoofer and replaces subwoofers in addition to controlling midbass directivity even better and adding SPL while going audibly deeper than any of The Ones paired with the smaller cheaper subwoofers."
If they are Best used as midbass modules, this means they perform Worse (since they aren't best used as a woofer) when it comes to deep bass, as that's the tradeoff of midbass efficiency typically, and it would mean the "this isn't a sub because it's a thing minus the performance of a sub" is true.
...which goes back to GLM and how it would configure things. If a pair of w371s can go as deep as a pair of their large subwoofers, great. If it's purposefully rolled off and just uses the extra cabinet volume for SPL in the midbass frequencies, then that's what it's for: SPL with controlled directivity.
Ahh, I get what you're saying now, and in the context of the thread "Stand subwoofers" I agree with you about extension vs spl. I started my audiophile journey chasing 30Hz max spl PA subs. My thinking at the time was "who cares about frequencies you can't even hear". How my view has changed
. Now extension is basically all I look for in a subwoofer(assuming it doesn't have audible issues). How loud they can play 30Hz is irrelevant to me now, as - due to room gain - I always end up with unlimited headroom in that region anyway.
From the perspective of using them as subwoofers with no external help, I would agree that they would have been better off prioritizing more extension(say 16Hz at least for a $10k sub
). That said, I'm glad they didn't, as I would likely never use them as subwoofers anyway, regardless of how deep they dig. The fact that they play up to 500Hz means that they lose by far the biggest advantage a separate subwoofer has over a tower speaker, which is the ability to separate itself from the left and right speaker without consequence. In fact, "stand subwoofer" is a bit of any oxymoron in my view
, though I understand that sometimes it's necessary.
For my use case, I'm more concerned about how well they can play 50-250Hz. I'll likely be crossing them over to subs somewhere in the 50-120Hz range, so lack of extension isn't really a huge issue in my case. I have my 8351Bs crossing over at 120Hz, as that's the only position and crossover combo I've found that works. Every other crossover and position I've tried(everything from full range to110Hz) has had at least 1 null somewhere in the response. Still experimenting, though.
