I bring you what I am calling my 'Golden Age of Subwoofers', which is my subwoofer story..
I have three different HiFi systems with pairs of subs, one in a small room, the second one in a middle sized room and the third in a quite large room. All three systems integrate the subs successfully and sound great, although they all sound different. People often ask about adding subs to their systems, and I thought it would be a good idea to group all my thoughts and experience about subwoofers into a single post, rather than attempting to explain my subwoofer philosophy in individual replies to other threads.
Expanding on the descriptions in my signature, here is a summary of the three systems:
Small Room System
--------------------
* Hugo/Miniwatt N3/Modified Tandy LX5/REL Tzero subs
* The system uses REL Tzero Subwoofers with a very low power valve amp (3.5 watts per channel) and REL's high level connection. The mains go down to about 70-80 Hz, and the subwoofers handle the range below that. The REL Tzeros don't go down as low as larger subwoofers certainly, but the quality of the bass in terms of clarity and dynamics is pretty amazing.
* I have nine Vicoustic foam bass traps in the front corners of the room, and the rear corners at ceiling height.
Medium Sized Room System
----------------------------
* (Stack Audio Link/MoOde;2Qute; Gyrodec/SME V/Hana SL/EAT E-Glo Petit; Magnum Dynalab FT101A) > PrimaLuna Evo 100 > Modified Klipsch RP600M/REL T5x subs
* The system uses REL T5x Subwoofers with a PrimaLuna valve amp and REL's high level connection. The mains go down to about 40 Hz, and the subwoofers handle the 30-40 Hz or so range.
* I have an assortment of bass traps, but the two most important from the point of view of the subwoofers are a pair of GIK Scopus T40 tuned membrane bass traps, tuned to 40 hz, where the largest rooim mode that needs controlling is at 42 hz.
Large Room System
--------------------
* KEF LS50W/R400b subs
* Room size: 10m long x 4m wide x 3m tall
* The KEF system in the larger room is all active with a high pass filter that rolls off the bottom end of the stand mounted LS50Ws, and a low pass filter for the subwoofers that makes the subs come in fully at about 60 Hz.
* I have seven GIK Tri-Traps in the front and at the sides at ceiling level, with another two half height Tri-traps, two stacks of three Vicoustic Super Bass Extremes at the front, along with four GIK Scopus tuned membrane bass traps which are particularly effective in the frequency range where the subwoofers operate. A large room needs a lot of bass traps to get the room modes under control.
Summary
---------
Here are some things all three systems have in common:
* The subwoofers are in pairs, as I believe pairs of subwoofers are better than single subwoofers.
* The pairs of subwoofers are positioned near the pairs of main speakers
* All the pairs of subwoofers are in white finish, which I find more attractive than black or wood grain finishes
* All three rooms have acoustic treatment, which includes bass traps.
* I use Duelund DCA20GA cable to wire up the subwoofers.
* I have found the best bass traps at subwoofer frequencies to be GIK Scopus tuned membrane bass traps:
- https://gikacoustics.eu/product/gik-acoustics-scopus-tuned-bass-trap-t40/
- The 'T40' Scopus is tuned to 40 hz, but you can get 70 hz or 100 hz ones, or order custom frequencies from GIK
I regard treating the room modes with bass traps as an essential part of installing subwoofers, and would not think it a good idea to put subwoofers in normal untreated and boomy room. If you do that you need to move the subwoofers around to avoid either being in a room mode null or a room mode peak. I prefer to fix the room modes in order to be able to position the subwoofers near the speakers where they look tidy.
This video and transcription of the talk by Dennis Foley of Acoustic Fields is a really good summary of what treating and tuning a room is about. He likens it to a three layer cake, with the bass frequencies at the bottom, and the mid frequencies sitting on top of the sound field created at the low end, and the treble frequencies sitting on top of the mids:
https://www.acousticfields.com/tuning-a-room/
I think this explains very well why when you improve the bass of your room via bass traps and sub woofers, it improves the mid range with better imaging and sweeter sound, and often you will be able to hear that improvement more than changes in the bass itself.
Cables
-------
I changed the cabling of my KEF R400b subwoofers from Chord budget C-sub cables to Duelund DCA20GA based cables the I made up, and there was quite a good improvement in mid range sweetness and clarity, even though clearly they weren't handling mid-frequencies in any way. This does suggest that better cables give tighter clearer bass, that you hear as a sweeter mid range.
I have three different HiFi systems with pairs of subs, one in a small room, the second one in a middle sized room and the third in a quite large room. All three systems integrate the subs successfully and sound great, although they all sound different. People often ask about adding subs to their systems, and I thought it would be a good idea to group all my thoughts and experience about subwoofers into a single post, rather than attempting to explain my subwoofer philosophy in individual replies to other threads.
Expanding on the descriptions in my signature, here is a summary of the three systems:
Small Room System
--------------------
* Hugo/Miniwatt N3/Modified Tandy LX5/REL Tzero subs
* The system uses REL Tzero Subwoofers with a very low power valve amp (3.5 watts per channel) and REL's high level connection. The mains go down to about 70-80 Hz, and the subwoofers handle the range below that. The REL Tzeros don't go down as low as larger subwoofers certainly, but the quality of the bass in terms of clarity and dynamics is pretty amazing.
* I have nine Vicoustic foam bass traps in the front corners of the room, and the rear corners at ceiling height.
Medium Sized Room System
----------------------------
* (Stack Audio Link/MoOde;2Qute; Gyrodec/SME V/Hana SL/EAT E-Glo Petit; Magnum Dynalab FT101A) > PrimaLuna Evo 100 > Modified Klipsch RP600M/REL T5x subs
* The system uses REL T5x Subwoofers with a PrimaLuna valve amp and REL's high level connection. The mains go down to about 40 Hz, and the subwoofers handle the 30-40 Hz or so range.
* I have an assortment of bass traps, but the two most important from the point of view of the subwoofers are a pair of GIK Scopus T40 tuned membrane bass traps, tuned to 40 hz, where the largest rooim mode that needs controlling is at 42 hz.
Large Room System
--------------------
* KEF LS50W/R400b subs
* Room size: 10m long x 4m wide x 3m tall
* The KEF system in the larger room is all active with a high pass filter that rolls off the bottom end of the stand mounted LS50Ws, and a low pass filter for the subwoofers that makes the subs come in fully at about 60 Hz.
* I have seven GIK Tri-Traps in the front and at the sides at ceiling level, with another two half height Tri-traps, two stacks of three Vicoustic Super Bass Extremes at the front, along with four GIK Scopus tuned membrane bass traps which are particularly effective in the frequency range where the subwoofers operate. A large room needs a lot of bass traps to get the room modes under control.
Summary
---------
Here are some things all three systems have in common:
* The subwoofers are in pairs, as I believe pairs of subwoofers are better than single subwoofers.
* The pairs of subwoofers are positioned near the pairs of main speakers
* All the pairs of subwoofers are in white finish, which I find more attractive than black or wood grain finishes
* All three rooms have acoustic treatment, which includes bass traps.
* I use Duelund DCA20GA cable to wire up the subwoofers.
* I have found the best bass traps at subwoofer frequencies to be GIK Scopus tuned membrane bass traps:
- https://gikacoustics.eu/product/gik-acoustics-scopus-tuned-bass-trap-t40/
- The 'T40' Scopus is tuned to 40 hz, but you can get 70 hz or 100 hz ones, or order custom frequencies from GIK
I regard treating the room modes with bass traps as an essential part of installing subwoofers, and would not think it a good idea to put subwoofers in normal untreated and boomy room. If you do that you need to move the subwoofers around to avoid either being in a room mode null or a room mode peak. I prefer to fix the room modes in order to be able to position the subwoofers near the speakers where they look tidy.
This video and transcription of the talk by Dennis Foley of Acoustic Fields is a really good summary of what treating and tuning a room is about. He likens it to a three layer cake, with the bass frequencies at the bottom, and the mid frequencies sitting on top of the sound field created at the low end, and the treble frequencies sitting on top of the mids:
https://www.acousticfields.com/tuning-a-room/
I think this explains very well why when you improve the bass of your room via bass traps and sub woofers, it improves the mid range with better imaging and sweeter sound, and often you will be able to hear that improvement more than changes in the bass itself.
Cables
-------
I changed the cabling of my KEF R400b subwoofers from Chord budget C-sub cables to Duelund DCA20GA based cables the I made up, and there was quite a good improvement in mid range sweetness and clarity, even though clearly they weren't handling mid-frequencies in any way. This does suggest that better cables give tighter clearer bass, that you hear as a sweeter mid range.
