Subwoofer slam vs boom

The reason you have sloppy bass is probably the fact that you have so many different drivers trying to move air at low frequencies. When it comes to tight bass less is sometimes more. The less things you ask of each component, the better they can work. The first thing you should try is setting your speakers to small and allowing your subs to take over below 90hz (usually the point most preamps/av receivers are set to). You may even want to go with a single sub- the VTF-3 puts out quite a bit of bass from what i've heard. I don't know what kind of bass management capabilities your processer has but you may want to invest in outlaw audio's icbm. This will allow you to fine tune each speaker's crossover point with the subs, particularly helpful if some of your speakers produce nice bass below 90hz. Lastly, two woofers operating in phase fireing opposite each other will cancel each other out, you may want to adjust the phase of the subwoofers. Keep in mind two subs do not equal twice as much bass, the only reason you should use a second sub in a room is to account for an odd shaped room that may have some sort of acoustical imbalance (i.e. open on one end). You may even be drawing too much AC out of the wall, five speakers and two subs, plus a TV if you are watching a movie will draw a hellava lot of current. This should be easy to spot b/c your lights will flicker- turn something off!. With your equipment you should be able to loosen fillings, bowels, cement and so on, its just a matter of proper setup. Let us know how it goes-

Hmmm i don't think you'll need an icbm, your preamp seems to have the right features. That whack in the chest feeling you are looking for occurs in the 70-80hz area. Real bass below 30 is felt in the bones more then it is heard. I'll bet your friend was using a subwoofer that didn't have as flat a responce as your subs. My first speakers were a pair of cervin vega at-12's. They could hit you in the chest like oj but really didn't put out much below 40hz. If you want a flat responce you can't have a big bump in that upper bass region. I now how have a pair of Dynaudio 1.8's which have a much better bass responce, but don't put out nearly as much slam as those old vega's. It could be that your gear is too good. You probably have a nice flat responce down to the upper teens, i bet with the right song you could crap your pants heehe. What you need to do is un-audiophile your gear a bit. Set your speakers to small, and your crossover to 80 or 90 so your subs will work that upper bass. Set the subs to max output and let it rip. Make sure there are no pets or small children nearby and then play some good old rap music or that scene fom Heat where they bust out of the bank. Those M16's should sound like a sledge. In responce to your other question, the .1 is a discrete low frequency channel movie makers use to place only low frequency information. The information on this track will only be sent to the subwoofer if one is present or 'large' in a system without a sub. When speakers are set to 'small' all information below the crossover point is redirected first to the sub, and then to any 'large' speakers. The bass management abilities of preamps and recievers varies greatly and tends to be the weakest link, but if you can choose the crossover point, you probably have a pretty good one. Having large speakers in a hometheater setup is still a good idea because all channels are full range these days (20hz-20k).

wait a minute did you say 25k in gear? what kind of system do you have? there is noo way you can have bad bass in that neighborhood, well maybe if you lived in yellowstone. Anyway I'm 26 also, i use dynaudio contour speakers and have a harmon/kardon signature amp/preamp- don't laugh it sounds great and I can play them just about full out without a bit of strain. i don't use a sub for music and never felt the need for one. I might pick one up for home theater, but then again i've got neighbors and you know how that can be. i'm rocking dmb right now and having a keg can, what could be better? maybe that's your problem- wrong state of mind ;)