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Subwoofer suggestions strictly for challenging pipe organ music.

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I am looking to purchase subwoofer(s) for a 2 channel music system.
Little to no techno will be listened to on this system, and no home theatre, so I am not looking for something that "pounds" the bass.
I do however like to listen to pipe organ music that can go very low, and also classical and jazz.

So I am looking for a sub(s) that can go extremely low, but is also really refined for that kind of music.
Again no techno and no home theatre will be played on this system.


The subs will be part of s system that includes:

Q Acoustics Concept 500 speakers
Advance Paris A12 Classic integrated tube amp
EverSolo DMP-A8 dac
(Haven't decided on the cd player and turntable yet)


(If you are questioning my speaker choice for the kind of music, the speakers good reviews and I got a deal I couldn't pass up).

If you want room specifics, my room is 12ft L x 10.5ft W x9.5ft H with a 5ft w x 7ft high opening that leads to the dining room.


My preferred budget is $1500 usd per sub. (Up to 2 subs total. So $3000)
I that is unrealistic for what I am after, let me know, I can go higher.

Thanks for the help
 
Pipe organs can apparently go down to around 20Hz, so you definitely want subs with a lot of extension. Do you have any restrictions on size? If not, a couple of HSU VTF-TN1s should do you quite well.
 
Pipe organs can apparently go down to around 20Hz, so you definitely want subs with a lot of extension. Do you have any restrictions on size? If not, a couple of HSU VTF-TN1s should do you quite well.
I heard they can go down to 16 hz.

How controlled and tight are the HSU VTF-TN1s? I do not want / need flabby home theatre bass.
 
It's also worth noting that 20hz and below is something you will feel more than hear, so unless you are playing pretty loud, you won't get much benefit from extension below 20hz.
 
I heard they can go down to 16 hz.

How controlled and tight are the HSU VTF-TN1s? I do not want / need flabby home theatre bass.
Getting "controlled and tight" bass is really not a characteristic of the sub. Either it can play down to a certain frequency with a certain SPL below a certain amount of distortion or it can't (and that HSU will have no issue getting down there at a high SPL with low distortion). What you're talking about is more about reigning in room modes. The only ways to accomplish that is with multiple subwoofers and DSP/room correction. Given the rest of your system you'll have to put something else in the chain for that last bit I believe, such as a MiniDSP 2x4 HD in combination with MSO software.
 
Getting "controlled and tight" bass is really not a characteristic of the sub. Either it can play down to a certain frequency with a certain SPL below a certain amount of distortion or it can't (and that HSU will have no issue getting down there at a high SPL with low distortion). What you're talking about is more about reigning in room modes. The only ways to accomplish that is with multiple subwoofers and DSP/room correction. Given the rest of your system you'll have to put something else in the chain for that last bit I believe, such as a MiniDSP 2x4 HD in combination with MSO software.
What do you think of Rythmik and SVS subs as well
 
You might look into servo feedback subs. They measure the distortion of the speaker than provide negative feedback to reduce it. I think one has been tested on ASR. They are not that common. Some people like aluminum cones. The theory is a more rigid cone is more like a perfect piston without the wrinkling of a less rigid cone creating harmonic distortion. The tradeoff is the aluminum has more mass.

Mackie used to make them for PA systems. Velodyne did them, but left audio to focus on lidar systems for self-driving cars. So both of those brand subs are very difficult to get repaired today.
 
It's also worth noting that 20hz and below is something you will feel more than hear, so unless you are playing pretty loud, you won't get much benefit from extension below 20hz.
Yes, and as the longest dimension of the room is 12ft (the lowest room mode will be around 47Hz), it will be quite a challenge to pressurise the room that low. Maybe a bass shaker is the better idea, at least as a possible addition.
 
You might look into servo feedback subs. They measure the distortion of the speaker than provide negative feedback to reduce it. I think one has been tested on ASR. They are not that common. Some people like aluminum cones. The theory is a more rigid cone is more like a perfect piston without the wrinkling of a less rigid cone creating harmonic distortion. The tradeoff is the aluminum has more mass.

Mackie used to make them for PA systems. Velodyne did them, but left audio to focus on lidar systems for self-driving cars. So both of those brand subs are very difficult to get repaired today.
Some Rythmik subs apparently go down to 14hz might look into them. The SVS SB-3000 was also on my radar but only goes to 18hz
 
Rythmik E15HP will do the job. A pair is even better..

@enricoclaudio

Can explain further :)

I use only one in my 12x16ft Gable office shed and it manages to scare the crap out of my guests always. 2x would be a better choice for defeating room modes...
 
You have a pretty small room open to dining room that is not included in your specs, and if there are any more connected spaces to the dining room. This is obviously not a dedicated HT space and thus I am somewhat reluctant to predict the room modes and interaction with all the fixtures in your adjacent rooms.

While you might feel good with powerful subs at your MLP, they might wrack your glassware in the dining room. Or if dining room is open to other spaces, you might have some modes in other spaces that will go +10dB or more and disrupt some other activities in those areas.
 
SVS subs tend to have good bang for buck in terms of extension. $1500 per sub will also get you some KEF KC62s which have really good extension but not much output for the money. I have a pair in my living room despite this, they don't bother my wife very much and do add quite a bit of bass to the LS60s. Bonus is you can use them with a wireless connector.

If I was just going for bang-for-buck I'd start with SVS and Hsu though.

OP - I would inquire as to your insistence on NOT techno, JUST classical. If a sub can do one genre competently, it (mostly) follows it can do the other. (Techno tends not to have much below 40hz, anecdotally)... but I assume you mean to say your priority is extension over SPL.
 

Subwoofer suggestions strictly for challenging pipe organ music.​

So I am looking for a sub(s) that can go extremely low, but is also really refined for that kind of music.

Because of the nature of pipe organ music that leads to sustained high output pedal notes (32', and even some 64' foot stops,) [divide 1132 ft/sec speed of sound at room temperature by 2x the length of the longest pipe in the rank mentioned], you are really at the mercy of the recording engineer.

You might not be aware of it, but most pipe organ recordings have heavily attenuated bass notes. If you don't believe this, open up your best organ recording in Audacity and look at the spectra of the lowest pedal passages. In order to correct this, a +3 or +6 dB/octave ramping EQ boost must be used below ~450 Hz (the common breakpoint frequency of older stereo receiver bass tone controls).

If you want to avoid having to correct your organ recordings, then go find multichannel organ recordings (there are a few of these) that have separate subwoofer channels (i.e., 5.1 multichannel). The mastering guys usually leave the bass below 450 Hz alone for multichannel recordings. Older stereo recordings (Archiv, DG, Philips, etc.) all have bass attenuation. You will not feel the presentation like the real thing unless you correct this mastering EQ bass attenuation.

If I were in your shoes and deep pedal reproduction were important to me, I'd be looking for a subwoofer that has f3 as low as 12 Hz with extremely high sensitivity--over 100 dB/1m-2.83v, like this: DTS-10

If you listen to these recordings fairly often, I would be looking for a subwoofer having extremely high sensitivity so it could sustain the pedal notes without succumbing to thermal compression. Putting 100s of watts into a little cube with a direct radiating woofer--even as large as 15" or 18" diameter woofer--will heat the voice coils such that they will begin to get almost red hot within seconds of reproducing authentic amplitude pedal notes, leading to immediate thermal compression issues on sustained notes.

I use two of these, one behind each front loudspeaker: TH-SPUD. Two of these have about the same output as one DTS-10. Your choice. I'm told that Danley had sourcing issues with the 8" woofers they use. The Tang Band W8-740P is a good substitute for the older Lab woofer used by Danley.

You can make your own TH-SPUDs with the plans found here: Dual 8" tapped horn = TH-SPUD. The price of materials is below $1000 for two complete units.

Chris
 
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I would go with an SVS sub that is ported. They go pretty low and will do the trick. But, at the frequencies you want, others have stated correctly that you will either be in heaven with amazing bass or fighting room nodes. The only way to tell is to buy a nice big sub and then move it all over the places and see when your listening position is getting the best sub sound. It might take a few days of fiddling with a very heavy sub. But buying one to do what you want is not hard at all. Let us know what you do and how you like it!
 
I have over 300 organ recordings, about half and half LP and CD. One of the advantages of the CD is that there is no need for engineers and mastering engineers to roll off the bass to accommodate the limitations of a cartridge stylus traversing LP grooves. That said, there are Very few recordings with 32' pipes recorded (there are very few organs with them, or subwoofers designed to fake them). I can think of a handful. Therefore, because most organs do have 16' pipes, capable of 32Hz, that is a reasonable target though having extension to 16Hz is awesome when the recording warrants it.

Another consideration already mentioned is the size of your room. One needs half the wavelength of the lowest frequency one wants to reproduce to generate it audibly. 32Hz has a wavelength of roughly 30' and is what we normally expect to hear from an organ. Hopefully, adding the dining room gives the extra room length necessary for the octave below. Perhaps the suggestion of the shaker is not untoward :)
 
That said, there are Very few recordings with 32' pipes recorded (there are very few organs with them, or subwoofers designed to fake them). I can think of a handful. Therefore, because most organs do have 16' pipes, capable of 32Hz, that is a reasonable target though having extension to 16Hz is awesome when the recording warrants it.
The organ recordings that I own that have only 16' stops were recorded mostly in the 1960s/1970s--mostly on LPs (and some were later transcribed to CD). These make up an older segment of the extant pipe organ recordings--and ones of which I now generally do not listen to, with notably few exceptions.

I have never been satisfied with organ reproduction down to only 32 Hz: I'm always aware of the lack of deep bass of organ recordings that do not have 32' stops (and recordings that have been edited to not allow hearing and feeling lower frequencies). Almost all the visceral effect of organ music is the ability to produce tactile levels of acoustic energy below 32 Hz.

Chris
 
I would second the idea of getting a HSU VTF-TN1 to satisfy the ‘low’ requirement and get a MiniDSP to be ‘tight’ because there is no such thing as a subwoofer that ignores room modes.
 
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Maybe two subs would be best, easier to calm room modes. The real deep stuff is in explosions in movies
 
Thanks for all your advice. I think I am going with two KEF KC92. It's relatively small, goes down to 11hz, and credible reviewers said it did a fantastic job with pipe organ, and that the base was very tight and not lingering. Below is part of a review from "WHAT HI-FI".

"The tonal quality of the deep bass (and the extension) was then proved even more when I played hi-res recordings of Bach’s most famous organ works, which require the organist to play notes so low they’re below the limit of most people’s hearing. The sound of the organ pipes was full, rich and textural and pitch differences were immediately evident, just as they should be.

The ‘tautness’ of the bass was again clearly evidenced. The KEF also made it easy to hear the sonic differences between the different pipe organs being played… no mean feat!

If you’re not into organ music, but you want a great demo of the depth and level of the bass the KEF KF92 is capable of delivering, listen to the ‘heartbeat’ on Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ – preferably from a hi-res format rather from ordinary Red Book CD. The ‘pulse’ is incredible… you’ll feel it echoed in your own body.

But you don’t have to listen to deep bass to appreciate what the KEF KF92 can do for your music, because I think one of its greatest strengths is in the lower music region where notes played by instruments such as bass guitar, double bass, and French horn are found, basically from around 60Hz to 120Hz (this also includes percussion and keyboard, of course!).

Whereas most subwoofers sound a little ‘thick’ when reproducing sound across this octave, the KF92 was entirely musical with a light, deft touch. There was no sense of ‘ponderousness’ to the sound at all."

This is just one glowing review. It's $500 more than I was looking at. but this sub sounds amazing, Can't wait to get two.
 
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