MattHooper
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I went through the same phase as well, enjoying the transients of my 8inch in my bookshelfs. I suspect that the perhaps the slow roll off and lack of longer wavelengths does provide a percieved improvement in sound(without subs). But once you add powerful subwoofers with drivers that can keep up with intense bass and time align them with minumim 3 subs then its a different ballgame.
My phase was due to my dual subs being entry level and light cabinets and not yet able to perfect my DSP.
I think my point is that, I understand that feeling of how adding subs distorts(whichever way it does for your application) the mains and you don't end up getting what your after. I had that for years it is a difficult stumbling block and if your mains can give you enough bass than striving for subs to integrate well is a big effort like you said. Im one of those who spent years trying to perfect it and ultimately achieved it.
Cool, I totally get and respect that and it's great you achieved it.
I'm super sensitive to tone and timbre. I have it just right in my set up. I found the subs always, to a greater or lesser degree, altered the perception of timbre and I preferred it without subs. I spent quite a while trying all sorts of things - different crossover points/phase etc/DSP to try and get "what I already liked, but with deeper bass" and it never truly gelled for me.
Whereas I could understand another person listening to my trials in my system saying "You know what? I like your system better with the subs."
I was motivated by the idea of improving the sound of my system, but I was also fine with it not working out, since I hate subwoofers - the looks, the added cabling and complexity, the hassle etc. Frankly selling it all off was a relief, aesthetically and financially.
One more thing, I'm not sure I mentioned in a previous thread about this: The subwoofers SEEMED to negatively affect the sound of my home theater system, even though they were not in use! I can't be sure, but what happened was:
I have my 2 channel speakers in the same room as my projection-based home theater. The home theater system is a 5.0 system, big center channel, good size stand mounts, which flank the screen. At some points I had both JL subs sitting where I could place them along the floor under the screen, so behind my 2 channel towers, but in between the L/C/R home theater speakers. I also at times had one sub behind my sofa.
Anyway, I often listened to music on my home theater system too. Right after I'd put the subs in my room (powered off) and I played music on my home theater speakers, the bass seemed all bloated. I was confused, because playback in the room had always been tight and clean. Then movie playback, whenever there was significant bass in a scene, it was overblown and bloated too. Like really obnoxious.
It was so puzzling because I hadn't changed any settings or anything. The ONLY thing that changed was placing the subwoofers in the room.
For the entire time I had those subwoofers in the room (a long time) bass was more bloated from the home theater system.
Of course my system was a bit unusual since the subwoofers in the room were not in use (hence woofers not controlled by their amp or a signal) while the home theater system was playing.
When I mentioned this on the AVSforum some of the subwoofer-heads there said it was quite possible the woofers in the subs were resonating sympathetically with low bass, adding to the sound hence the bass bloat.
I don't know if that was happening, but once the subs were gone from the room (when I sold them not long ago)...sound from the home theater no longer seems to have that bass problem. All sounds more even.
So...I dunno.