Home Theater: Is Subwoofer a must?

I have four 12" woofers, four 10" woofers and six 8" woofers in my home theater NOT including any subs. Adding two more 12's for the dedicated LFE channel made a BIG difference even though my mains are -3 db down at about 25 Hz and the surrounds at about 32 Hz. While all of these speakers are low efficiency ( 86 db's or so ), the system is powered by 6450 watts RMS. Believe me, nothing is "choked" or "compressed" sounding in this system. Having told you all of that for a reference as to where i'm coming from, you Legacy's should do pretty well by themselves. That is, as long as the amp is not "pooping out" on extended bass notes ( movies have much longer duration low frequency passages than ANY music that i know of ) or the room is not extremely large. My Father has been running Classics in a decent sized room with amps rated for between 350 wpc @ 4 and 600 wpc @ 4 and never had ANY problems. The floor and walls shake when dinosaurs and earthquakes come into play. I would suggest that your speaker placement might need some work or that your system is not fully optimized in this regard. Keep in mind that when you find "optimum" speaker placement for HT use, that probably WON'T coincide with best results for 2 channel use. This means that choosing which is more important to you probably WILL come into play unless you can find a happy medium between the two. This is the reason that many folks that have the space and money do seperate HT and stereo systems. This way, neither is compromised. In my opinion, making movies "realistic" has NOTHING to do with making a 2 channel system seem "realistic". Sean
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George, let's not get carried away. My amps are factory spec'd at 6450 rms, NOT 6480. : )

Since others here have had similar results using equivalent Legacy speakers that "Jmc" is using, that tells us that it is probably NOT in the speakers but in how it is all set up. I would also agree that how the bass management is set-up on the individual processor ( Proceed in this case ) can DRASTICALLY affect the overall output. I have seen some processors that were HORRIBLE in this respect while most others offer limited versatility. The good thing about the Proceed stuff is that it is all "modular" and computer based. I think that you can probably even have them "program" something for your specific system if it comes down to it. As to some of the other comments about using "boomy" subs, that is NOT a problem as long as they are crossed over low with a very steep slope. Most of the "impact" on movies is based at 30 - 50 Hz. If it can do this at HIGH levels and is rolled off sharply ( 18 - 24 db's / octave) above that, that's fine. Electronic crossovers will work MUCH better than a passive unit in this respect. The only time that "boom" will detract from movies ( NOT music ) is if it is creeping up into the 70 - 80 Hz or higher range. I've measured some subs with built in passive crossovers that were still "barreling away" at 180 Hz or so. This can make male voice "chesty" or sound like they are talking into a barrel. The problem is that most "boomy" woofers are of some type of a bass reflex design. If the active driver has a relatively high resonance, feeding it high power at points below that frequency will result in MASSIVE cone throw, distortion and possible driver damage. That is, unless it is designed as a "long throw" ( high Xmax ) unit. The drivers are "unloaded" at that point and will flail about massively, much like when you play a severely warped record. Not only does this rob power needlessly from the amp, the bass that it is trying to reproduce will be of much lower quality and definition along with a possible increase in port noise ( commonly referred to as "chuffing"). Like anything else, it's all a matter of having a balanced system and taking the time to dial it all in. Sean
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Killer !!! Glad that you were able to work out your problem without spending any more money. That's always a good thing : ) Sean
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