does a subwoofer kill stereo sound?

No. Stereo imaging is not impaired by a sub, provided that you've managed the x-over properly. Even if you screw that up, you're probably okay on the stereo separation front, so long as you're crossing resonably well below 100hz.

Marty

PS As Jax points out, a lot of things go easier with subs when there's more than one to work with.

Disrespectuflly disagree that "subs exaggerate...."

Until someone has set up a subwoofer using RTA (and/or digital room correction), they should probably refrain from sweeping generalizations about what a sub does or does not do. A properly set-up subwoofer will produce measurably superior bass performance vis a vis the vast majority of full range speakers in the vast majority of rooms. Not a sweeping generalization - a fact.

There is a pretty simple reason: Most full range speakers are designed for placement out in the room. If this is where you generate your bass response, you will virtually always get serious cancellations at frequencies which can be calculated by their distance to the nearest wall and (to a lesser extent) further boundaries. A properly placed sub will mitigate those cancellations.

If a sub is exaggerating the low end, it is a poor sub and/or it has been improperly set up.

This doesn't mean that you have to prefer a sub to a full range speaker - merely that you can almost always get the sub to measure better, if you do it right.

Marty

Re: expanding soundstage.

I've heard the same effect, but not consistently. Most recently it's become quite apparent on Allen Toussaint's "The Bright Mississippi" which I believe - and I am speculating here - features a very large bass drum. With the subs on-line, the recorded acoutic sounds much larger when that drum is struck.

However, I rarely hear this type of dramatic evidence of this effect on most other recordings.

Marty

String,

I'm not sure that we're taliking about the same thing - but we might be. I'll go back and listen again, but I'm not necessarily talking about the lowest frequencies on the recording - rather a percussive sound (maybe +/- 50hz fundamental as a guess, but clearly below where a kick drum impacts) that seems to "bloom" when the subs are on.

OTOH, we might be talking about the same thing since, as I indicated in my OP I was speculating as to the source. I'll cue it up again and post back. Thanks for the insight.

Marty

Marty

String,

I got a chance to listen to "Mississippi" again. I believe that you're right re: Day Dream, but my post was actually refering to something different, like the series of drum beats that begins less than a minute into St. James Infirmary. I believe that it's higher in pitch than the passage you reference, but removing the subs on this song causes the stage to collapse (on my system) dramatically. I do believe that it's a bass drum struck with a mallett, but can't be sure.

The same collapsing stage occurs on Day Dream, but it's more dramatic on "Infirmary" in my system - for reasons unknown.

Marty

BTW - Don't know the old Kay basses, but I have (quite recently, actually) played one of their old archtops. It was a pig and I'm not sure why anyone is fond of these things. Different strokes, I guess.