Thread: Are subwoofers bad for music?

Steve Guttenberg

Dan, it’s definitely an interesting topic. I had REL G1 Mk2 subs and Jim and I tried integrating them with the Magico M3’s and we gave up after hours of trying. The REL’s were slow and sluggish and were “taking away” and didn’t have any new technologies for room integration. Basically, move them around and hope for the best. They failed to integrate with the fast Magico’s.

Over the years, I’ve had sunfire subs with my Maggie’s and they worked great and many other subs. Some were good and some, not so much.

I’ve heard several Magico setups with JL Audio subs and those were always awesome and wicked fast. JL Audio, like Magico and others have superb room integration technology.

But the best subs I’ve ever heard, are the Magico Q-Subs and the Avantgarde long bass horn subs. Paradigm makes a cool looking sub too.

Personally, I haven’t found a desire to add a sub to many of my setups over the years. I know subs are more about the midrange than the bass, but I’ve still never found a need too often.


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I definitely love my Martin Logan dual subs with my Magnepans. They are fast, musical and integrate flawlessly. They disappear and you only know that they are their if you turn them off. They have enhanced the music and my enjoyment. But not all subs match well with all speakers. I have a velodyne sub that sounds like crap with my Magnepans. However, I am not so sure that I will be using my subs when I get my PSB T3's.

I can certainly relate to live music having too much bass. 2 or 3 years ago, Stevie Wonder came to town and we had great seats at his concert. The bass was way too loud and drowned out his voice. It ruined the concert.

The dual powered 12 inch subwoofers built into each of my Vandersteen 7 Mk2 speakers are huge winners in my opinion. Deep bass extension, perfect integration and a strong foundation for the music.

The same goes for the outboard Vandersteen Sub Nine subwoofers that I have auditioned, which seamlessly roll over from the internal subs below 100 Hz.

The 11 band equalization on each of the subwoofers allow them to perfectly integrate into my challenging listening room. Richard V. really has it figured out.

Ken

I'm sure subs can be integrated properly, like Joe, I've heard subs not integrated well for the most part.

I personally choose not to go down that road.

The best I've heard subs done, and, I honestly would have not known they were there unless I was told, the first time I heard Kinergetic with their swarm. The subs were audible, just blended the best I've ever heard, seamless.

My friend has six JL in his 2-channel rig, they're blended pretty well, the subs have room correction, I think even with a microphone. Then he also uses a Wavelet.

If properly integrated, subs can give much more than low end extension and impact.

The sense of realism increases markedly and it is almost as if you can hear the air of the recording venue.

I'm truly happy with my pair of REL R528SEs.

For my needs for music soundfield recreation, subs are a must. YMMV.

As a side note I use Foobar for my music player, which has a spectrum graphic showing exactly how deep the music goes, no guesswork. The guesswork folks might be surprised if they understood what they saw, although some sort of spin would be likely. Or not.