Since using tall floor standing speakers with good bass no need for subs. I do not listen to church organ music and no movie sounds then for me the 40 Hz with full ability is good enough. The submania in my opinion was created to sell more than just two stereo speakers. And the trend to small speakers with almost no deep bass made it plausible. OK, I understand that not everybody has the room for big speakers which may look displaced. There hidden subs may be a solution. But for me the fiddling to get the subs right sound integrated (here are many threads on this) is not mine. What I heard at some installations was just a dumb boom boom from the sub with no musical content.
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Subs not needed thankyou!
- Thread starter DavidEdwinAston
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After partly room threathment 20% an 80% DSP certainly no subs needed any more using full range farfield speakers an close range monitors same room. Depends on how good or bad your room acoustics are. Simple measurement reveal a lot.
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The main point of adding the subs to a floorstander isn't necessarily added bass, but more even response and thus better bass. I think I may spend some of the day writing an article on the topic inspired by this thread. Will share when ready. 
Please what do you mean with "floorstander"? A small box elevated on a stand or big box standing on the floor? Further how do you define "more even response"? Would help me to understand that.The main point of adding the subs to a floorstander isn't necessarily added bass, but more even response and thus better bass. I think I may spend some of the day writing an article on the topic inspired by this thread. Will share when ready.
Keith_W
Master Contributor
Most of us mean "speaker that does not need stands" when we say "floorstander". This usually implies a larger speaker with more internal volume, which also means that it is likely to have more bass extension. But not always.
All rooms modify the bass response by quite a lot. "More even response" means two things: (1) a flatter frequency response which is (2) over a larger listening area.
Just wait for Sigberg to write his article
Thank you. I am not native english so sometimes I do not know all meanings of a word. If more even response means what you said, then the small boxes must also be able to deliver bass down to what the subwoofer emits. Otherwise the frequency responses are split and then I doubt that a specific frequency is more distributed over a wider listening area. Will wait for Sigberg.Most of us mean "speaker that does not need stands" when we say "floorstander". This usually implies a larger speaker with more internal volume, which also means that it is likely to have more bass extension. But not always.
All rooms modify the bass response by quite a lot. "More even response" means two things: (1) a flatter frequency response which is (2) over a larger listening area.
Just wait for Sigberg to write his article
Okay, article finally ready. There's a small pitch of our own speaker systems towards the bottom (as this entire discussion is why we've designed our 4-way systems the way we did), feel free to skip that bit - the rest should be generic and hopefully educational.
The article goes through the benefits of subwoofers even with full range speakers, and it's not about capability or extension, but rather bass linearity and quality.
www.sigbergaudio.com
The article goes through the benefits of subwoofers even with full range speakers, and it's not about capability or extension, but rather bass linearity and quality.
Do you need subwoofers if you have full-range speakers?
It's a fair question: If your speakers are already able to play deep bass, what would a subwoofer even add? Surely that's the whole point of full-range speakers? Sometimes the answer is that no, you don't need subwoofers. But less often than you'd think, and rarely for the reason people assume...
www.sigbergaudio.com
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YouDontHaveEnoughBass
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Thanks for writing this up
Quick question, when you say the sub(s) smooth out bass compared to just loudspeakers, are you assuming the speakers continue playing full range and the subs overlap in that region?
Quick question, when you say the sub(s) smooth out bass compared to just loudspeakers, are you assuming the speakers continue playing full range and the subs overlap in that region?
Indeed. I have standmounts mounted on walls, turned into IB speakers, which moves the lower -3dB point up a fair bit.
It took me three days to firstly position these correctly and then integrate two subs with them. It's a lot easier if your mains, like mine, don't go too low (it's thus easier to discern "boomy" points or suckouts) . I don't use mic.- based tools, just stepped and swept bass test tracks and my ears. Then about a dozen music tracks with lots of low-bass energy, repeated, and tweaks done as needed. It's actually very easy, but boring and time consuming! Luckily I have a really easy room - I'm sure with measuring tools you could see required corrections, but I have not yet played a track (or a film) in the last 5 years that made me concerned about weird audio effects. Floorstanders that go down to say -3 dB @30Hz, or better, really should not need subs.
[my subs have built-in amps, DSP, and setable volume and XO - you'll never blend subs and mains without this or a DSP/Dirac-type thing elsewhere in the chain]
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Keith_W
Master Contributor
Beautifully written article, Thorbjorn! I like "Extension is a property of the speaker, linearity is a property of the room". Well said!
Just one minor nitpick - it's "preferable" not "preferrable".
Thanks for writing this up
Quick question, when you say the sub(s) smooth out bass compared to just loudspeakers, are you assuming the speakers continue playing full range and the subs overlap in that region?
My immediate reaction to that question is that it's complicated and it depends.
Should have covered this in the article as well perhaps, but it gets a bit too long at some point.So;
If you don't have EQ / room correction on the speakers, I would like to suggest a hard no for allowing the speakers to continue to play full range, as they almost certainly have at least one significant peak that you are then stuck with despite adding subs.
If you do have EQ / room correction, it becomes a maybe, and it can work. It depends how the sum of the speakers and the subs interacts with each other, and what capacity the speakers have compared to the subs. If the subs have significantly more headroom, the speakers will be the factor limiting how loud you can play.
So my general recommendation would be to high-pass the speakers, but there are situations (rooms) where it can work well to overlap if you have EQ/room correction available.
I have a spare UMIK-1 if you fancy just checking?
Keith
BMR Monitors go to 34Hz. Good enough.
If you don’t have an easy room, you might need subs even if the mains are full range. It depends on room modes and the location of the mains and subs.
Thanks - but not much use to me without DSP in the chain, to attempt correction.
Just getting readings without a fix are more likely to depress me! Besides, I'm OK with the way all my music sounds, bar all the stuff I know was poorly engineered!
You don’t necessarily need DSP, REW’s ‘room simulation’ feature can be useful or simply moving microphone measuring to help determine the ‘least worse’ positioning of speakers and listener.
Keith
Keith
I am not sure what "easy room" means. The worst rooms for bass modes are those with rectangular dimensions with seating near the center of the room.
Mean & Green
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It’s very room dependant. Nulls exist and can suck the life out of music.
My main system with tower speakers in a medium size room needs the sub, otherwise bass is missing in the listening spot. My second system with bookshelf speakers mounted on stands in a small room does not need a sub. One size doesn’t fit all.
The last place I lived, I had two subs to even out the response in a large room.
I always think those with sub aversion are, either very lucky that their speakers both image well and produce good bass in the sweet spot, or they could use a sub but have a false opinion on what they sound like and have never really experienced a nicely set up sub in a domestic room.
My main system with tower speakers in a medium size room needs the sub, otherwise bass is missing in the listening spot. My second system with bookshelf speakers mounted on stands in a small room does not need a sub. One size doesn’t fit all.
The last place I lived, I had two subs to even out the response in a large room.
I always think those with sub aversion are, either very lucky that their speakers both image well and produce good bass in the sweet spot, or they could use a sub but have a false opinion on what they sound like and have never really experienced a nicely set up sub in a domestic room.
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