why use towers if you've got a sub??

Interesting the way we all think and hear differently about this. I find a sub to be near essential for music, even with near full range tower speakers. I don't give a hoot for home theater applications, so it's strictly about music for me. Perhaps listening environments vary so much that that is a major factor in our differing opinions? I've used a sub with Maggie 1.6's, my ACI Talisman SE's had built in self powered subs, and I ended up adding one JL Fathom F112 to augment the 32hz. extension of my Tidal Piano Cera's. I cross it over a 40hz. and it is subtle in the way it affects most music. But I love the way it adds ambient cues to music. Small things like hearing the rumble of the stage under the orchestra interact with the whack of a tympani add immeasurably to the sense of suspended reality a good system induces.

Since this post is in the ht forum lets not talk about 2 channel.
i was asking the same question as the OP... not too long ago. it seems to all come down to this... A full frequency range is what you are looking for and for home theater you want a sub even if you have great front speakers. you will have to buy on the upper end of the sub market if you want to use monitors for the fronts. these subs are quicker in reacting at the UPPER frequencies. you may even want to get two of them. they are adjustable in the frequency range... and so is a good receiver, or whatever you are using to drive them.... so you can play with the frequencies on both speakers and subs, maybe you want them to overlap in the crossover area maybe not. it is more about the clarity than the BOOM. but you want both. so.... the floor speakers will give you clarity to a certain mid area then the sub can take over for the lower.

Baranowski,I arrived at this post by clicking on,Forums,then clicking on my choice of,post in the last,12 hours,24 hours ,48 hours,nowhere does it say this post is in the HT section,,,if you arrived here the way I have,respectfully.

Ray, if you look at the very top of the page, you'll see in the second line "learn-forums-home theater." Still, I'm not sure why whether one has two, three, five, or seven channels really matters with regard to the original question. Unless I'm missing something, differences between two channel and home theater subwoofer use is only a matter of implementation and quantity. I suppose the OP's original question could be interpreted as asking whether there is a better alternative to the THX camp's way of implementing bass management; letting all bass below 80hz. be sent to the subwoofer through the LFE output of the processor?

In many applications, Rrog's point, "Monitors speakers with a sub also give you the flexability of pulling the monitors into the room for a more spacious sound while not sacrificing bass performance," is perhaps the most cogent in a thread with lots of misinformation.

The notion of listening to a sub seems a clear indication the sub is not set up properly. You really shouldn't hear speakers, just a well imaged soundstage. What you do want from a sub is low distortion with minimal overhang. You don't want to be aware of the sub(s) as a sound source.

Personally, I use two towers that are pulled into the room with two 15" subs, but my system does both music and HT, and my processor permits listening with the mains full range or crossed to the subs with but a click of the remote.

db