Dual Sub setup question

[MacDaddyOJack]

Could jibucha actually be the architect?

I didn't see anything overly innovative or useful in those wordy posts of his...

[Aerodude73]

Originally Posted by kndy

Hehe...anyone watch the comedy sitcom "The Big Bang Theory"...about the physicists who are always trying to challenge each other's perspective?

Nevertheless, good comments on the technical end of components and soundwaves and on the practical end based on years of experience using multiple subwoofers and varying points on setting up dual subwoofers.

+1 -- Great Comparison. It's been interesting - and also -- at times.

In no particular order... (though I think - ?? - we may have learned a few new bits of info along the way, so for that,

[Big Daddy]

Originally Posted by jibucha

Hello

Definitely, proper set up, is having one subwoofer per channel.

This way, whatever sound information is available, whether left or right, is left or right, as intended; you will hear the difference.

Thank You

Dr. Floyd Toole, the leading scientist at the National Research Council of Canada and currently the Vice President of Acoustical Energy at Harmon International in his "Loudspeakers and Rooms for Multichannel Audio Reproduction" article:

When a full-range signal is panned to each of the loudspeakers in turn, and measurements are made at the listening position, we find hugely different bass responses for each of the loudspeakers. The differences are as large as 40dB in this room, and the biggest ones are all at low frequencies. The reason, the woofers each have very different acoustical “coupling” to the room resonances because they are in different locations. This will be different for every different room.

Attempting to improve the situation by panning the bass to pairs of loudspeakers changes things, but does not remove the problem. Anybody think that an “ideal” room can help this? An anechoic room would, but none of us would wish to live in one.

And this is why bass management and subwoofers make sense. Now we can place the woofers where they perform optimally for a specific room with a specific listening position. We can place the satellites (a term that seems inappropriate for some of the large capable loudspeakers that we use in the high-passed channels) where they need to be for directional and imaging effects. In other words, we design the low-frequency portion of the system separately because rooms force us to do so. This is the only way that we can get good bass in any room, and have any hope of having similarly good bass in different rooms. Remember about preserving the art?

Todd Welti, Research Acoustician at Harman International and an associate of Dr. Toole in his "Subwoofers: Optimum Number and Locations" article:

Four subwoofers are enough to get the best results of any configuration tried. Two subwoofers is very nearly as good and has very good low frequency support as well.

Let's hope this puts an end to this nonsense.