Why the fascination with subwoofers?

Dear @bdp24  : You are rigth, live event experiences is a must to have and understand the home system bass management.

We need ( as you already have. ) first hand experiences trhough live event experiences seated at nearfield positions ( in different venues. ) to try to approach that live bass experienced.

We always will be not even near the live experiences but at the end the end our target must be to " approach " it.

Maybe the bassm management range in home systems is the most complicated target to achieve in the best way we can. Always will be trade-offs where we have to choose in between.

R.

What bdp24 said, +1. Get around a rhythm section(within 25 feet), that’s played together for any length of time and you’ll understand, "tight Bass". For(most) anyone that’s been around the real thing, for any length of time, it’s mandatory in the listening room. Far as semantics: "tight" generally refers to how cohesive a group sounds. When applied to a system (in my personal thesaurus, anyway), how well the lowest notes are detailed and how easy it is to follow each rhythm section player’s individual lines(given a well mixed/mastered recording, everything in phase and balanced). Then too, there’s the recording venue’s ambiance info, much of which is carried in the lower registers. ie: Dead Can Dance(Spirit Dance/Yulunga, especially) can place one in the Quivvy Church’s auditorium/studio, with the right setup. When I first built my woofer system, it was designed(1980-81) to mate well with my Acoustat Model IIIs. It’s worked seamlessly, with everything(mostly planar) I’ve owned, since(various active crossovers, amps and one driver change, but same transmission line cabinets).

I have to admit that with my Magnepan 20.7's I have toyed with the idea of adding a subwoofer but in the case of the 20.7's in my room they measure flat down to about 28hz and only then start to roll off.  So I would not want to crossover the signal "from" the maggies to a sub, rather I would want to blend a sub in beginning at around that point of 28hz.  BUT of course there's just very little music down there I don't believe however.

@rauliruegas 
You are really mad at Ralph. Oh well...

FWIW:

and he still posting that he needs only two subs because his speakers goes down 20hz ( solid hz. ): so what?, that confirms that he did not understand yet the overall subject in this thread and in the reality of any room/system

I believe he's talking about the same approach Earl Geddes, Hartman, etc do: 4 sources playing subwoofer frequencies to flatten response across multiple seating positions. In his case, per his comments, his mains go down to 20Hz so they are playing in the subwoofer region as well. He will add two subs in parallel to the mains so he will end up with 4 sources playing subwoofer range. That's all. Common sense to me (coupled with some theory/knowledge). 

rauliruegas,

I don’t understand why you’ve been going after atmasphere/Ralph, either. Yes, his primary business is designing and selling high quality tube gear but it’s a mistake to assume his audio knowledge and experience is limited because of this.
I’ve been reading his posts for years and it’s obvious he has an abundance of knowledge on a wide range of audio subjects that I’m sometimes surprised by. For example, he knows Duke Lejeune, owner of Audio Kinesis that sells the Swarm and Debra 4-sub distributed bass array systems, and is well versed on the subject of attaining good bass response in rooms smaller than recital halls.
He’s been setting up very good sounding systems in small audio show rooms for years, often utilizing subs and dbas to get the bass sounding right in these rooms which is almost always very difficult to do.
His personal system speakers are capable of very good deep bass output down to 20 Hz but he’s still adding a couple of custom subs because he already knows through experience that this is the best method to further smooth and improve bass response in his entire room.
I’ve explained the above because it appears from a few of your posts that you’re unaware of Ralph’s breadth of knowledge and experience and the value many Audiogon members, including myself, place upon the information, opinions and advice he shares on a consistent basis.

Thanks,
Tim