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are subwoofers anti-audiophile?

I have been into this hobby 25 years now and have noticed not a lot of us use Subwoofers in our systems.

I have 2 systems, one which is a Celestion SL700 with their Celestion System 6000 subwoofer pair with a outboard crossover-----my other system has changed quite a bit, but with always large floorstanding speakers. I have also always had adequate power to the speakers.

My floorstanding system cannot match the realism i get from my Celestion/subwoofer system. In my floorstanding system, it is almost like the bassist is backstage playing, while the rest of the band is front stange and center. This leads me to my question. Why don't most of us use subwoofers? I am a member of an audiophile club and we do system hops and no one has a subwoofer in their 2 channel systems.
justlisten
rleff
1,065 posts
 
Tbg-when you tried intregrating with stats were you using a passive or active and was it larger than 12 inches?
I mated a chiro c120 passive to my soundlab m2's and the results are pretty stellar;I found anything larger seems to be sluggish and just can not keep pace with the panels.
johnk's avatar
johnk
1,490 posts
 
Most subwoofers are a total design compromise thus many not so good for music. But infra bass systems do exist that do justice to music reproduction, stay clear of little cubes with massive power and large excursions. Look for bass towers, bass horns, massive bass systems.
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Rleff, well with some I really don't remember. My Infinity ServoStatics had a feedback subwoofer, which may have been larger than 12". It was, of course, really a woofer, but it never really mated with the electrostatic panels. The second was an Epps 12" isobarik design that was 8' tall. I had 800 watts per side on it but perhaps not a great crossover. I used it with the Soundlabs A1s.

Most of my experience was with using subs with horns. Again with my Beauhorns, I used the Epps with no greater success. I should say that I could shake the house with the Epps.

I am trying a Zu Methods with my dynamic Tidal speakers, but I have yet to get it working. I will crossover at 40 Hz.

What bothers me is that the subwoofer seems like a separate speaker playing music. This may be the slope of the crossover, of course.
jburidan
672 posts
 
It all depends on the system. For example, the powered subwoofer of the Infinity Prelude MTS is perfectly integrated. However, this is an exception not the rule.
johnk's avatar
johnk
1,490 posts
 
TBG try center placement of your subwoofer. Also try moving forward and back this might reduce the localization effect. Of small subwoofer. Massive design just produce pressure and detail to bass, small forced designs bloat notes can be located in sound stage, to me at 40hz or lower you shouldn't hear where sub is but standard designs are easy to hear where they are. Maybe cabinets vibrating at frequency that are locatable and higher up than crossover point crossover might not have proper filter so frequency above cutoff come through.
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