The idea of a “swarm” of subs is based on evening out the nodes. It’s an admirable goal but rarely practical.This statement is false. A distributed bass array such as the Swarm is far more effective at getting the bass right in a room than room correction or bass traps; its a more elegant approach.
This isn't to say that using bass traps and room correction won't help, but if you have a standing wave in the room (which can be a reason why a single sub or pair of subs don't seem to make much bass despite having plenty of power and the bandwidth needed) all the room correction will do is make the amps make more power at the frequency of the standing wave cancellation. No amount of power will solve a standing wave, since the energy is being cancelled.
Bass traps don't intelligently work at the frequency needed to prevent the standing wave (which is the result of the bass waveform bouncing off of the wall behind the listener and cancelling itself at the listening position)- they work at all bass frequencies.
Now if you combine all three then you can get spectacular results.
Jesus, the 4 sub cult is strong here.Just physics. Cults, to my knowledge aren't bassed (see what I did there?) on physics.
IMO its fairly easy to set up a set of Swarms in a smaller room and keep it neat, since the Swarms are designed to work placed against the walls and also work best if the placement is asymmetrical.
Of course you can get good bass with only one sub, but it has to be placed in exactly the right location, which (more often than not) may not be the most convenient.