Is two Subs better than One?

Dear Richard: You can't believe the paramount importance of that subs subject till you have the opportunity to experience on your own system where you will be surprised of the high level of the quality performance improvement on the response of your system: you will discovery a " new world "!! and from that first moment you can't go back !!!

Almost all of us when we are talking of subwoofers immediately think on " more and better low bass ", almost non of us think in how/where we really take great advantages to improve the quality sound reproduction of the main speakers and the main amplifiers too, well the integration of subs to our systems can/could do that and more!!!

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

thanks Raul for your lenghtly and detailed explanation. It's likely that it is the case for most but not all situations. Each of my Vienna Acoustics Mahler have two 10 inch woofers that only take care frequencies from 70hz down. It would be silly for me to cut them off. it would defeat the purpose of the having those speakers. I believe that if the mains are made with quality it's an overkill to cut them out, especially in my case. That's only my opinion based on my experience.
As now, I have a stadium iii and soon as I get a good deal and budget I will buy a stentor, and then I'll try to integrate the two... We'll see...thanks

I have to disagree regarding the frequency and localization issue. I propose that if you believe that you cannot 'localize' a sub that is cutoff below 50 Hz, then try this.

Put the sub, LPF set at 50 Hz, at the 1/4 point between the speakers. That is, halfway between one speaker and the midpoint between both speakers. I guarantee you'll be able to tell which side it's on, provided that your speakers are set up properly, and in a room that's a decent size. The effect gets more noticeable, naturally, as you move the sub closer to one speaker. And when you've proven to yourself that you can 'localize' it, the case for two subs over one is practically irrefutable.

I was a non-believer before I tried this myself, having subscribed to the common knowledge. Sorry, but this myth needs to be debunked for the good of the audiophile community.

Dear Baam23f: The Mhalers are very good/clever thinking design and that's why they choose to lower the normal IMD/HD, that exist on almost other speaker designs , crossing from midrange to the low drivers around 70-80hz and this is exactly what I'm talking about.

Now, you choose too a very well matched amplifier ( bryston ) because the Mhalers goes down near 2 Ohms in the low bass and the Bryston has a very low output impedance and the power to handle easy.

+++++ " I believe that if the mains are made with quality it's an overkill to cut them out, especially in my case.." +++++

I agree with you.

+++++ " I will buy a stentor, and then I'll try to integrate the two " +++++

I like and respect your wide " open mind " on the subject. Which are my thoughts here?:

well, IMHO the integration of two subs in full stereo fashion ( by-passing the Mhaler low drivers. ) in your system could help ( maybe ) not only to go deeper on the low bass but more important than that could be two things ( between other less important ones ) : leave the Bryston free of work in the 70-80hz/down frequency range and in this manner is probable that the Bryston improve its quality performance in the main remaining frequency range.

The second thing is that because the low mid-bass/low bass frequency range will be handled by two subwoofers where its drivers were specific designed for that range ( same as Mhalers but these ones goes to 30hz -5db and -10db at 22hz and we don't know with which distortions level. ) and where those drivers are paired with amplifiers that match exactly the subwoofers parameters: frequency response, electrical impedance, damping, power, distortions, etc., it could be that you could have a quality improvement.
Like you say: " We will see ".

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Absolutely yes. Running two SW-12s with a set of Aerial 20T's and it helps even out the base response of the overall room. One sub is in a corner boundary so it's turned down and has a different crossover versus the sub that sits in the middle of the space and doesn't have the room boundary support.