Subwoofer with Floorstanding Speakers?

I have four subs (3 Rel + 1 SVS) that supplement my floorstanders (Vienna Acoustics Mozart Grande). Adding the subs is the best thing I have done in many years to improve my listening experience.

I run subs with large speakers. Without the subs my system is just ok but with the subs it is outstanding. Bass really matters and does make a huge difference  

All speakers need subs. Even wilson audio runs subs with their supersize speakers. Unless the speaker is active all speakers improve with subs. 
 

With big speakers you need to use a highpass. If you look up the measurements of your speakers and cross them over where the woofer starts to roll off before the port picks up (probably 60hz) it will work out pretty well as a starting point. 

I run an active sub with floor standing speakers to augment only the bottom octave.  The sub runs off the main speaker outputs to the high level inputs, and the low pass crossover gets set at its lowest setting (<50hz).  I do not run my main speakers through the high pass filter of the sub to avoid any degradation to the signal, and I set the gain of the sub very low so that it's barely audible.  My intent for the sub is to augment what the floor standers do, not feature it.

There are really two possibilities here. One, you do miss actual low bass… but more likely your memory was flabby over highlighted bass. Better audio systems have much more accurate bass, which can contrast with college.

However, subwoofers will add bass. Always add in pairs… this will also help extend the soundstage as well. When I had Olympica I had a pair. Although mostly what they did was increase the soundstage. I happily got rid of them when I upgraded my speakers.

@bigtex22 --

Still enjoying my Sonus Faber Olympica Nova Vs in our den where I mostly listen to jazz. However…I had a nostalgic experience tonight and streamed up some Def Leppard and cranked it LOUD. With this kind of rock, I am missing a little of the bass I remember from my school days. Got me thinking, how many of y’all are running a subwoofer in your stereo setup with floorstanding speakers? What do you think? Any issues with sound distortion?

Remembering an experience of played back music (or just experiences in general) can be tricky, as such recollections can be "modified" in one’s thinking back on them - not that I’m implying this in your case. Moreover, the gear used for playback back then could’ve been woefully bass-heavy and yet despite of it being perhaps less than "audiophile" inclined formed itself as a reference in your head, and as such may prove at odds with your current setup and its likely more frequency balanced qualities in reproduction.

Or, maybe the above is just a load of redundant b*llocks, and you’re simply in want of some added bass impact with named music as is, earlier references and recollections be damned. Whether a subwoofer, preferably a pair of them (or more), will address your issue or not is dependent on several factors, not least of which is how you decide to implement them.

Much if not most of the bass impact of music resides in the central/midbass area, and if you’ll run your main speakers full-range and blend in your subs fairly low (say, with a bit of overlap a low-pass set at ~40-45Hz), I’m not sure your subs will add the can kind of impact you’re looking for. Actually, I’d either blend in the subs rather low <35Hz or fairly high from 80Hz on up to stay out of the most predominant central bass region and any mixture of mains/subs here, which in your case translates into a favorable 80Hz on up subs low-pass.

This however leaves you with the need of high-passing your Sonus Faber’s, and not everyone are happy with a digital cross-over/DSP unit over their already passively configured main speakers, although I’d say with a quality digital XO the benefits of high-passing the mains (more headroom, lower distortion, likely better overall integration) will clearly outweigh any negligible influence of the DSP itself and a possible A/D to D/A conversion here. High-passing your mains from 80Hz on up necessitates a pair of subs placed symmetrically and close to each main speaker. Generally I’d avoid using a built-in high-pass filter in the subs; buy a separate, quality digital XO instead.

If for some reason the thought of high-passing your mains seems less desirable to you I’d suggest the following: experiment with the placement of your main speakers, and see if you can retrieve perhaps some midbass energy this way. Then add a pair of subs from the likes of PSA (using pro woofers and quality ICEpower amps) low-passed in the 40-50Hz vicinity and hereby overlapping your mains a bit. A pair of sealed PSA models like the S3012 with dual opposing pro 15" B&C woofers would seem a great match. Should you still lack midbass impact I’d go forward with high-passing the mains and a cross-over no lower than 80Hz with the suggested PSA subs.