I'll chime in and say I am a proponent of "just fine" bass!
The problem is room gain which becomes an issue as the frequency gets low.
The measurements you have been looking at are all designed to mimic anechoic chamber measurements. This makes sense from the standpoint of being able to have a measurement standard where measurements are comparable in different test labs; however, if you want flat response down to 20Hz
in your room, a
flat anechoic measurement is not really desirable.
All rooms are different, but you can bet your room and my room will be much closer to each other than either is to an anechoic chamber.
Steve81 is a member of this forum who has gone to pains to try many subs and measure his in-room response in order to get a flat in-room response. He uses a Funk FW18 sub. For the purpose of ending up with a
flat in-room response, he selected the EQ option on his sub (it has 6 EQ options) with the following
anechoic response curve:
This happens to be in a ~2400 cu. ft. room. Generally, room gain increases as the size of the room gets smaller.
This is a concern I am a little passionate about as I bought dual E112's only to find I could not tame the lower bass to make them musical (using Denon AVR4520ci with Audyssey XT 32) in my over 4500 cu ft room.
While the E112's are sealed, they have built in EQ to increase low frequency output. I dislike the idea of adding bass traps to try and get my room to behave more like an anechoic chamber.
I have found that my dual Rythmik E15HP or my dual PSA XS15se both give a much more musical presentation.
You can read more about this with varying viewpoints starting at around post #33 here:
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/attachments/fr-jpg.16670/
For HT, I will run my subs about 6dB hot (adjusted at the AVR). Sometimes more if I am looking for a mindless romp!!! These loud low frequencies bring out the brain stem responses (hair up on the back of your neck/adrenaline)!
I don't want to make this more complicated, but here are the points/comments I would like to make:
1) If at all possible, listen to you favorite music with deep bass (ideally acoustic, not electronica - you probably know the balance of an orchestra or bass and piano in a jazz trio) on both sealed and ported systems. Ideally the sealed system would have little EQ applied.
2) Chances are the Dali subs are made for music and have a nice roll off for in-room integration.
3) For Home Theater, more deep bass is just fun! While I find a sealed sub is entirely listenable with the music settings, I am glad I have the extra headroom in my subs to turn them up for HT! I like to feel it in my gut when a rocket launches or a dinosaur stomps!
4) I am not a fan of subs where you plug ports in order to get a sealed sub. This is more conceptual that my own experience, but a true sealed sub will have the driver parameters, cabinet size, and amplifier all designed to act as a sealed sub. Anyone in the DIY forums would tell you that you a driver well suited to a ported sub is not at all what you want in a sealed sub.
5) From your conversation, it seems that visual aspects of your layout are important. Because of this I would highly recommend you get dual subs (whatever you decide on). Chances are there are only a handful of places you are willing to set a sub in your room. Adding a second will make it much more forgiving if none of those places turns out to be ideal!
