Subwoofers - do they work?

Posted by: Tarquin Maynard - Portly on 16 January 2003

Muchachos

Would be interested to see opinions on this. I have just been listening to a very high end, purely "Scottish" system, including the Majestik subbie. Martin Kleiser pulled their usual and evil A/B dem trick, and IMO the difference was definite and substantial. I could hear the tunes the bass register was producing, the treble sounded more rounded as well, it just sounded better.
Beats me why.
I found it fascinating to hear the subbie on its own. The amount of information delivered was not huge; in fact it sounded as if someone was having a party two flats away.
But when incorporated with the normal speakers there was a real improvement.

Mike
Posted on: 16 January 2003 by jonnpb
with my active keltiks (previously kabers) you can listen to each drive unit independently, which I normally do as a final test that I've plugged everything in right after moving the system around. The bass does sound odd on its own. The mid is the closest to the integrated sound, but sounds muddy. The treble just sounds silly.
Posted on: 16 January 2003 by Keith Mattox
Good ones do

But it's much easier to screw up the sound of the system with a sub than it is to get it right. Don't scrimp on the quality of the sub and especially don't scrimp on setup effort.

Cheers

Keith.
Posted on: 16 January 2003 by John Channing
No, they don't work. Listen to the music not the sound and you will see what I mean. If you want more bass buy bigger speakers, like DBLs. Wink
JOhn
Posted on: 16 January 2003 by Keith Mattox
Yes they do

If you do it right.

Cheers

Keith.
Posted on: 16 January 2003 by Brucie
Yes they do work but I think they are only necessary in certain environments. Your room is crucial.

I have small Shahinian Super Elf speakers and used to have them in a medium size carpetted room. They were fine with good bass extension for such a small speaker (CD3/72/hi/180).

Then I moved to a hot climate - big house, tiled floors, no wall paper and a huge 5m long sliding door as one of the listening room walls! Very different acoustics which made the speakers sound very hollow and the bass was v.thin (as expected). I put in a REL Q50 (a very humble but well made sub) and it transformed the sound. I could not live without it now.

I realise I ultimately need bigger speakers but having recently heard a CDX2/52 into those little shahinians I know they can go a lot further!

To say subs never or always work is narrow minded. Yes, get the best one (REL?) you can and it will take you a while to tune it in. Even with my room problems the sub does not work that hard or that loud. It just nicely and I think subtley, fills in the missing gaps.

Try one and see.

b
Posted on: 17 January 2003 by Arye_Gur
While I couldn’t stand a great pressure by few friends, they came with a Rel sub to show me how good it is with my IBL.

Their conclusion was that the IBL are ok, the Bas they are giving is quite good, and the Sub is unnecessary for sure.

Arye