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35Hz - 25kHz -- A Partial 'Purist'?

It's amazing how much musical information can be found in the lowest bass regions say 30Hz down to below 20Hz, whether classical, folk, instrumental, pop, etc..

Yet, I'm purplexed to see some to many audiophile 'purists' refuse to even attempt to resolve the obvious deficiency in their systems which simply cannot reproduce any musical information in the lowest regions of the frequecy spectrum.

No matter how musical, how refined, and/or how infinite the configurations a good musical subwoofer can offer, the 'purist' simply will not consider adding a subwoofer to supplement their mains. There's too many good subs (you only need one) ranging from $1k to $30k that can be quite quite musical and allow for near-infinite configurations to adapt to most any system and listening preference. And, yes, I am aware there are many more bad subwoofers, but's that's another thread.

As a self-proclaimed 'fundamentalist', my quest is to ensure my 2-channel system is such that any musical information coming from the source stands an excellent chance of being faithfully reproduced for my listening pleasure.

And by adding a musical 18 inch subwoofer, I don't believe I've given up anything.

I would enjoy hearing what others think.
stehno

Showing 1 response by ultrakaz

ultrakaz
187 posts
 

I'm in Tireguy's camp, I've never heard a sub that seamlessly integrated with the satellites. This is not to say that I've never heard a satellite/sub system sound good (like Pipedreams and Airfoil), but there was always a discontinuity and or muddiness between the low bass and everything else.

It's a matter of degree and priority. Some are more than willing to compromise seamlessness for low bottom end. I'm happy at 35 hz. In 18 years of listening to sub/sat systems, my experience has been "honeymoonish." That is I hook the sub up and it sounds fantastic, but after awhile (one week or two) something is amiss, like a muddiness or an afterthought. And, low and behold, once I take the sub away the music gets its' life back. Then the cycle repeats, though a lot less now than before.

I think that if the speaker system was designed around using a sub, then it may have a better chance of sounding more seamless or less discontinuous depending on how you look at it.
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