Wouldn’t talk a guy out of either one. My thing was, I knew all my life, literally one of the first things I learned, you can get pretty darn good midrange and treble on a budget, but really good bass costs big money. For a good many years I even thought really excellent bass might actually be impossible, due to the inevitable bass modes caused by small rooms. DBA is a total game changer. Makes true SOTA bass attainable for as little as $3k, which is extraordinary!
DBA is also so flexible, you can start with one sub and just add more as funds allow. There’s no need to match anything. In fact differences actually help as the whole goal is to have lots of different modes, and different subs do this automatically. The biggest challenge actually turns out to be mental, or psychological, the difficulty many have with understanding the concepts and that it does in fact work. Once you get that, you are practically home free!
At the same time though if you have less room, or pretty good bass, or are more into sound stage and imaging, well then the Podiums are a slam dunk. Eventually of course we "want it all" and it takes a while. I went 30 freaking years with crap bass before I got my DBA! Then a couple more years before discovering springs. Between Duke and Max, (and Timmy, RIP, and Krissy ;), they have really brought me at last into the top levels.
One more thing, just as DBA can be added one sub at a time, Townshend can be added with Pods one component at a time. That is what I did. Podiums are such a big step, I like to DYODD which includes testing stuff a little at a time wherever possible. Plus of course did not hurt having Rick help me with springs! So there was actually several steps leading up to Podiums- springs, Nobsound, Pods, finally Podiums. Just thought worth mentioning because Podiums get all the glory and deservedly so but the Pods give a lot of the same benefits. If you look at total cost since you can get several sets of Pods for the same as one Podium, the combined improvement of the Pods is by the time you do that about equal. Kind of like you add one sub at a time, eventually you get there that way too.
I used to think there was always one right way to go about it, one best thing to add next, one that will make the most improvement. Now after a long time and a lot of trial and error I think there are many ways, you can’t really say it has to be one or the other, it is more like no one can ever have it all, everything is a trade off anyway, so which one do you prefer?
DBA is also so flexible, you can start with one sub and just add more as funds allow. There’s no need to match anything. In fact differences actually help as the whole goal is to have lots of different modes, and different subs do this automatically. The biggest challenge actually turns out to be mental, or psychological, the difficulty many have with understanding the concepts and that it does in fact work. Once you get that, you are practically home free!
At the same time though if you have less room, or pretty good bass, or are more into sound stage and imaging, well then the Podiums are a slam dunk. Eventually of course we "want it all" and it takes a while. I went 30 freaking years with crap bass before I got my DBA! Then a couple more years before discovering springs. Between Duke and Max, (and Timmy, RIP, and Krissy ;), they have really brought me at last into the top levels.
One more thing, just as DBA can be added one sub at a time, Townshend can be added with Pods one component at a time. That is what I did. Podiums are such a big step, I like to DYODD which includes testing stuff a little at a time wherever possible. Plus of course did not hurt having Rick help me with springs! So there was actually several steps leading up to Podiums- springs, Nobsound, Pods, finally Podiums. Just thought worth mentioning because Podiums get all the glory and deservedly so but the Pods give a lot of the same benefits. If you look at total cost since you can get several sets of Pods for the same as one Podium, the combined improvement of the Pods is by the time you do that about equal. Kind of like you add one sub at a time, eventually you get there that way too.
I used to think there was always one right way to go about it, one best thing to add next, one that will make the most improvement. Now after a long time and a lot of trial and error I think there are many ways, you can’t really say it has to be one or the other, it is more like no one can ever have it all, everything is a trade off anyway, so which one do you prefer?