I'm with you. I was flattered to hear I test for best phase adjustment like you do. Hand on sub driver while listening to bass passages. I know that below a certain frequency (probably 60 to 75 hz) sound is almost directionless. Well, the sound is not directionless but our ear/brain interface is unable to determine direction. For this reason, crossed over low enough, one can place a sub just about anywhere without it calling attention to its location.
The room/wife consideratons are, however, quite another issue. For me to place my sub beside or behind my listening sofa would entail running cables under carpet which gets walked on (not good) or be ugly. ("Do you really need those wires running across the room?").
As you, no doubt saw from my system pictures, my Sunfire sub is behind my left main speaker. It has both an active and passive radiator. The active faces inward, across the front wall and toward the center and the passive points in the opposite direction. When setting it up I was surprised that best response is 180 deg. out of phase. My sub has a variable phase setting from 0 to 180. For a while I thought 90 deg. was best but 180 is stronger.
Connections are from my power amp to the high level inputs on the sub. This for two reasons: I have read that this setup is best for matching subs to mains, and I only have one set of outputs on my preamp. Just for comparison, I tried a Y connection at the power amp inputs to the low level inputs on the sub but for some reason this resulted in a very ugly hum. Either the pre or power amp did not like this setup.
I am not perceiving an issue with integrating the sub with the mains, I would just like it to be a little tighter. I think this is simply an issue with the quality of the sub itself. I think Bob Carver uses a class D amp in his subs and while the Sunfire True Sub is no slouch it is certainly not the caliber of my Canalis Cambrias. Speaking of which, I think you mentioned in a prior post you were not familiar with the Cambrias. The Canalis speakers are a product of Spiral Groove. They are designed by Joachim Gerhard who used to manufacture the German Sonics Alegra speakers. Joachim has now joined Alan Perkins at Spiral Groove. The Canalis speakers are virtually the same as Joachim's Sonics speakers but manufactured from bamboo plywood with tweaks to the crossovers. You can see the whole Canalis line here: http://www.canalisloudspeakers.com/loudspeakers.php
The Sunfire was originally purchased for my home theater back when I had a Vandersteen 2W for the music system. For some inexplicable reason I sold the Vandy woofer. One of my larger buy/sell mistakes. The 2W's mate very well with monitors and small towers.
Two of my obsessions in listening are imaging and detail. I have found that monitors and narrow tower speakers do this best. The Cambrias are basically a couple of monitors in a tall box. The drawback is, of course, they don't move quite enough air. Hence my use of the sub.
All things considered, I think my best setup would be two small to medium size subs. I've been looking at the Rel T5i an T7i. The 5's are a little short on power but given my listening habits they may be enough. They probably would not work for your large orchestral productions, but then you always have room A for that.
Best,
Harry
The room/wife consideratons are, however, quite another issue. For me to place my sub beside or behind my listening sofa would entail running cables under carpet which gets walked on (not good) or be ugly. ("Do you really need those wires running across the room?").
As you, no doubt saw from my system pictures, my Sunfire sub is behind my left main speaker. It has both an active and passive radiator. The active faces inward, across the front wall and toward the center and the passive points in the opposite direction. When setting it up I was surprised that best response is 180 deg. out of phase. My sub has a variable phase setting from 0 to 180. For a while I thought 90 deg. was best but 180 is stronger.
Connections are from my power amp to the high level inputs on the sub. This for two reasons: I have read that this setup is best for matching subs to mains, and I only have one set of outputs on my preamp. Just for comparison, I tried a Y connection at the power amp inputs to the low level inputs on the sub but for some reason this resulted in a very ugly hum. Either the pre or power amp did not like this setup.
I am not perceiving an issue with integrating the sub with the mains, I would just like it to be a little tighter. I think this is simply an issue with the quality of the sub itself. I think Bob Carver uses a class D amp in his subs and while the Sunfire True Sub is no slouch it is certainly not the caliber of my Canalis Cambrias. Speaking of which, I think you mentioned in a prior post you were not familiar with the Cambrias. The Canalis speakers are a product of Spiral Groove. They are designed by Joachim Gerhard who used to manufacture the German Sonics Alegra speakers. Joachim has now joined Alan Perkins at Spiral Groove. The Canalis speakers are virtually the same as Joachim's Sonics speakers but manufactured from bamboo plywood with tweaks to the crossovers. You can see the whole Canalis line here: http://www.canalisloudspeakers.com/loudspeakers.php
The Sunfire was originally purchased for my home theater back when I had a Vandersteen 2W for the music system. For some inexplicable reason I sold the Vandy woofer. One of my larger buy/sell mistakes. The 2W's mate very well with monitors and small towers.
Two of my obsessions in listening are imaging and detail. I have found that monitors and narrow tower speakers do this best. The Cambrias are basically a couple of monitors in a tall box. The drawback is, of course, they don't move quite enough air. Hence my use of the sub.
All things considered, I think my best setup would be two small to medium size subs. I've been looking at the Rel T5i an T7i. The 5's are a little short on power but given my listening habits they may be enough. They probably would not work for your large orchestral productions, but then you always have room A for that.
Best,
Harry