What are the best subwoofers to use with Magnepan 20.1s?


Hello all.  Which subwoofers would give the smoothest response/integration with Magnepan 20.1 speakers?  The rest of the system is Audio research Ref 3 preamp, Pass labs 600.5 amps, VPI ref scoutmaster turntable, Pass Labs XP 25 phonostage, UHA Tape Deck.  Thank you in advance for the help.
powerdoctor

Showing 1 response by audiokinesis

James Kates published a paper in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society years ago that showed dipoles to have smoother in-room bass than monopoles.   Since getting smooth in-room bass at low frequencies is difficult at best, getting in-room bass from a subwoofer system that can subjectively keep up with dipole mains is even more of a challenge. 

Note that smooth bass = fast bass, because the in-room peaks correspond with longer decay times.  The good news is that when we have smoothed the frequency response we have fixed the time domain response because they are the same problem.

Dipole subwoofers seem like the obvious solution, but dipoles have a subjective lack of impact down low.  They don't give you that chest-compression WHACK! that a good monopole sub does.

One way to have both smooth bass and impact at the same time is to use a distributed multi-sub system.  Four subwoofers intelligently distributed around the room will be inherently far smoother than a single unequalized sub, and that smoothness will hold up pretty much throughout the room, which is not the case with a single or even a pair of equalized subs.  Remember smooth bass = fast bass.  And those four subs can be fairly small because, well, there's four of them. 

The Absolute Sound awarded a 2015 Product of the Year award to a four-piece multisub subwoofer system, so apparently the concept works well.   You can of course cook up your own version with Rhythmics or Vandersteens or RELs or JLs or whatever.  

Duke

dealer/manufacturer/multisub advocate