Why don't established (non-ID) speaker manufacturers make better subwoofers?

[lovinthehd]

I use inexpensive Klipsch RF62IIs in our HT system, which is only two channel, and they provide very good output in our small 16x14x10 HT room to nearly 32Hz. We typically don't watch action or fantasy movies, so sub-32Hz bass in movies is a non-factor for us. But I don't even feel any sense of loss watching the Jurassic Park series on that system.

Whether you feel there's no loss doesn't mean there isn't any....just your preference.

 

[NorseMythology]

Whether you feel there's no loss doesn't mean there isn't any....just your preference.

Just cross the sub over at 35hz and anytime it moves, that is what he was missing, all caveats aside.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Whether you feel there's no loss doesn't mean there isn't any....just your preference.

I never said otherwise. What I stated was an opinion, that I didn't feel a sense of loss. If y'all like watching action movies with computer-generated sub-30Hz bass, cool. I'm just not into it.

 

[Danzilla31]

I am not attempting to present factual information! This is largely my understanding of the subwoofer industry. Please correct me if I am not properly representing the facts! Thanks!

In the recent thread on Martin-Logan improving their Dynamo series of subwoofer, @BoredSysAdmin made the comment that they would be competitive if they get closed out at 50% discount:

I agree with his point, but that also led me to reflect on other established speaker manufacturers. While the Martin Logans may be over-priced compared to ID competition (and I am including SVS as ID even though they are now sold at BestBuy); they are almost unique in providing well-designed subwoofers (at least for HT)!

Klipsch and Polk both have a reputation for making poor subs (although the new-ish Klipsch 15" sub has a good reputation and is close to being price competitive).

And where is JBL/Harman Audio?

KEF makes some, but they don't seem to be taken seriously by most people here (maybe it is the 9"-10" sizes).

Paradigm makes some great subs once you are spending thousands of dollars.

I have always believed companies like KEF and JBL probably make good subs for music, but are somehow not that interested in the HT subwoofer business.

It seems like as HT was becoming a thing, and by the time the ID companies (and Velodyne) were starting to establish that a significant market does exist, the larger established companies with deeper pockets and experienced speaker/sound engineers would take action to at least give their established customers a competent option. As is, it almost seems like they decided to hand the HT subwoofer market to others.

Any ideas on how this came to be?

Also, where does Sunfire fall in all of this? I had assumed that they had closed shop (because I never hear their name),but their products have continued to be available on Accessories4Less?
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/category/spksubwoofer/speakers/powered-subwoofers/1.html?brand_f[]=SUNFIRE

Thanks!

Hey KEW how've you been? I just wanted to say that screwing around at the Best Buy by my house I've seen twice those Klipsch 15 subs you mentioned the ones that got good reviews on sale for 700 dollars I believe it was in the 740's to be exact. I allllmost I almmmooost went with those both times because for around 1500 those subs dual that's a pretty dang good deal. I'm glad I went with SVS and I'm real happy with the PB 2000's but you know and I know I won't be truly happy until next year when I get my upgrade. I can't WAIT!

 

[Danzilla31]

The reason why larger speaker manufacturers do not make serious subwoofers is because there isn't much money in it for them. Heavy-duty home theater subs will always be a niche product, and will likely always be the province of manufacture direct. SVS is sort of changing that, but even then I don't usually see their ported subs at Magnolia. Few people will tolerate a big, expensive black box that goes boom real loud. Low WAF means low sales, so no one is going to manufacture these things in quantities of tens of thousands. The only subs that sell in those kinds of quantities are going to be smaller. I don't know who the highest selling subwoofer manufacturer is, but I would guess it is Polk, followed perhaps by Klipsch.

Another thing is, whatever Klipsch's and Polks reputation for making subs, where is the detailed measurement sets of their subs? Just how bad are they if we are going to knock them? The only detailed measurement set I know of is from an old Klipsch SW-311 at Data-bass. I know Brent Butterworth tested R-115SW, and it didn't test so bad from the available data. You have to also remember that the MSRP is quite different from the street price of these subs, so it doesn't make sense to compare their MSRP to manufacture direct subwoofer MSRPs. I see people ripping in these subs from time to time, but they do so outside of reasonable context.

Hey Shady just wanted to tell you I'm pretty lucky to have Bjorn's right down the street from me here in San Antonio TX great place great guys I love my sales rep he's the best. They sell just about every version of SVS Subwoofer you can imagine even they're cylinders I actually got to play with and see the PB 16 ultra. That made my day that beautiful beast is so huge although I think I got in trouble when they caught me laying on it and they couldn't get me to let go! Anyways you just made think about that when you were talking about SVS in best buy you brought back some good memories!

 

[Danzilla31]

As far as the subject of this post I think everyone hit the nail on the head. And I can sum it up with an experience with a friend he had one of the budget polk subs it was in a horrible place in the room sounded TERRIBLE but because it was out of sight for his wife and was BOOMY he loved it. And I wasn't gonna be a buzzkill and tell him any different. And that's why the big companies do it. If people don't know what they're missing and due to size cost etc and all the other factors mentioned above causes them to love what the companies are selling. And they can sell the crap out of those things then why should they be motivated to do anything different? And from a business perspective I can't blame them. If your making a killing and nobody is demanding any improvement in your product if I were in they're shoes well I'd probably sell the heck out of those things too.

 

[sterling shoote]

I will say this, it is difficult to integrate subwoofers with the large towers many audiophiles use, like I do, if you're looking for accuracy rather than exaggerated bass. It took me quite a bit of effort and experimentation to get it right. High-end speaker manufacturers put a lot of their product cost into deep bass response, so I suppose advocating the use of subwoofers is akin to saying you don't really need the expensive deep bass response from towers, which is also like saying you can spend less on the mains and allocate a bunch of cost to one or more subs.

What I've found is that if you want to place your mains for best midrange and about smoothness and best stereo imaging in a large room, you really need one or more subs that you can place for best and smoothest bass. I also advocate parametric equalization for tuning the bass frequencies, which is not a good idea IMO for the midrange and above. So I'm sold on sub use in music systems even though I have full-range mains, and wouldn't be without a sub again.

Or you could be like ADTG and just use five large, adjustable bass sources.

Yes, it is my experience too that it is difficult to adjust a sub to a system which has "full range" mains. When the sub has been properly adjusted, its output will be unnoticeable on much music; and, the sub will only be appreciated for music which actually does have content in the 40 to 20Hz region. Even then, the volume would need to be at a relatively high level to actually hear anything produced by the sub since hearing 40 to 20 Hz information in music takes concentration unless it is isolated, or exaggerated by an extra amount of volume drawn from the sub. And that's the whole problem for music, uninitiated folks adjusting the sub to hear sound coming from it. The only thing worse is the rattling distorted bass from a pimp's ride.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Yes, it is my experience too that it is difficult to adjust a sub to a system which has "full range" mains. When the sub has been properly adjusted, its output will be unnoticeable on much music; and, the sub will only be appreciated for music which actually does have content in the 40 to 20Hz region. Even then, the volume would need to be at a relatively high level to actually hear anything produced by the sub since hearing 40 to 20 Hz information in music takes concentration unless it is isolated, or exaggerated by an extra amount of volume drawn from the sub. And that's the whole problem for music, uninitiated folks adjusting the sub to hear sound coming from it. The only thing worse is the rattling distorted bass from a pimp's ride.

Crossing over at 40Hz is not what I do. I run the mains full-range, which in their case is relatively flat to about 20Hz. I use a sub with multi-band parametric equalization, feed with a parallel full-range line-level input. I set the sub's low-pass filter to 100Hz, with a 24db/oct slope. I measure the mains' response at my seating position with OmniMic2 with a boom-mounted microphone, and determine where the suck-outs are in the range from 20-120Hz. Then I adjust the parametric equalizers on the sub to fill in the suck-outs and adjust the relative bass level with a steady rising slope peaking at +6db at 20Hz relative to the output level at 1KHz. The last time I did this it took four rounds of measuring, adjusting, re-measuring, and double-checking my work with test tones by ear. As I remember the process took an afternoon.

In my previous room the bass octaves were a mess, and even this process produced just good results. In my current room the results were a lot better and easier to achieve, which I think that's because the room is larger and it has a concrete slab floor, as opposed to a suspended wood floor. The size of the room also allows my listening seat to be six feet from the back wall, while in the previous room I was only three feet from bookshelves.

Based on experience consulting with other people who have asked for my advice, you are entirely correct that they like to readily hear their subwoofers working. Not so much the folks with music-targeted systems, but the ones with HT systems were really keen on it. I'm sure no one here is no naive.

 

[mattlach]

Yes, it is my experience too that it is difficult to adjust a sub to a system which has "full range" mains. When the sub has been properly adjusted, its output will be unnoticeable on much music; and, the sub will only be appreciated for music which actually does have content in the 40 to 20Hz region. Even then, the volume would need to be at a relatively high level to actually hear anything produced by the sub since hearing 40 to 20 Hz information in music takes concentration unless it is isolated, or exaggerated by an extra amount of volume drawn from the sub. And that's the whole problem for music, uninitiated folks adjusting the sub to hear sound coming from it. The only thing worse is the rattling distorted bass from a pimp's ride.

This is why on most HT systems, regardless of what your mains are, it is generally best practice to cross them over at ~80hz, regardless of how low they go. The HT receiver will then apply a high pass filter at 80hz, and only send high frequency signals to the main speakers, more or less turning them into a set of bookshelf speakers, and letting the sub handle the bass.

 

[Irvrobinson]

This is why on most HT systems, regardless of what your mains are, it is generally best practice to cross them over at ~80hz, regardless of how low they go. The HT receiver will then apply a high pass filter at 80hz, and only send high frequency signals to the main speakers, more or less turning them into a set of bookshelf speakers, and letting the sub handle the bass.

Best practice? I don't know about that. Easiest thing to do for someone looking for easy solutions.

I've also never seen that strategy measure in-room well at all without at least two subs deployed, and even then both subs need to be strategically placed. Otherwise, it's a recipe for thumpy lumpy bass. (It just feels like there's a song there, sung to the melody of a Hippy Hippy Shake.)

 

[snakeeyes]

Best practice? I don't know about that. Easiest thing to do for someone looking for easy solutions.

I've also never seen that strategy measure in-room well at all without at least two subs deployed, and even then both subs need to be strategically placed. Otherwise, it's a recipe for thump lumpy bass. (It just feels like there's a song there, sung to the melody of a Hippy Hippy Shake.)

Sounds like you have excellent towers if you measure to 20hz. Let them go full range. Why fix what isn’t broke?

Many others have speakers that don’t get anywhere near 20hz and may want to invest in dual subs and crossover the mains at 80hz.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Sounds like you have excellent towers if you measure to 20hz. Let them go full range. Why fix what isn’t broke?

Many others have speakers that don’t get anywhere near 20hz and may want to invest in dual subs and crossover the mains at 80hz.

Speaker placement is critical for bass performance, and as I mentioned earlier I placed these speakers specifically to optimize midrange smoothness and stereo imaging. In those positions the bass is lumpy and has a few suck-outs in some important frequency ranges. So at the system level they are "broken", hence my rather complex sub deployment. Now that I've discovered a means to get smooth extended bass with a sub in my music system I'm addicted, and I'll probably never be without one or more subs in that system again. The only thing I'd do differently if my current sub gives out: I'd go with two smaller subs rather than the one huge one.

 

[lovinthehd]

I never said otherwise. What I stated was an opinion, that I didn't feel a sense of loss. If y'all like watching action movies with computer-generated sub-30Hz bass, cool. I'm just not into it.

Like I said, preference instead of missing (as in missing the content delivery), not whether you don't want it or care for it....2 ch HT? Weird.

 

[sterling shoote]

This is why on most HT systems, regardless of what your mains are, it is generally best practice to cross them over at ~80hz, regardless of how low they go. The HT receiver will then apply a high pass filter at 80hz, and only send high frequency signals to the main speakers, more or less turning them into a set of bookshelf speakers, and letting the sub handle the bass.

For my mains to properly integrate with my sub I crossover at 60Hz, which is JBL's recommendation for their B-380 sub used with L100t3's. Now, I've tried it at 80Hz but then I need to run the sub on occasions I could have otherwise left it turned off.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

... {snip} ...
Also, where does Sunfire fall in all of this? I had assumed that they had closed shop (because I never hear their name),but their products have continued to be available on Accessories4Less?
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/category/spksubwoofer/speakers/powered-subwoofers/1.html?brand_f[]=SUNFIRE
Thanks!

Sunfire is a brand / company founded by industry legend Bob Carver. He has a habit of selling his interest in the companies he founds so maybe he's no longer involved, or the company is being winded down, or it's another example of a Venture Capital firm buying a brand and selling of reputation with rather ordinary products. But I don't know any of that for sure, so do your own due diligence.

Accessories4Less often offers buyouts, closeouts, and the like. The Sunfire subs in particular have (had?) a good reputation as a Music sub.

Carver has a habit of naming his technology with proprietary buzzwords. I believe the Sunfire subs use (or generally use) a feedback-type circuitry that reacts to room nodes and applies correction (you can do this by directly measuring the driver excursion or by measuring the back-emf electrically. Measuring the back-emf has the effect of "reading" the room response, as it will change with pressure gradients that reflect the actual space the driver finds itself in).*

It's been a long time since I've heard a Sunfire sub and the ones at Accessories4Less seem different (and much less expensive). But even though I dislike Carver's preference for gimmicks that are really just conventional technology with trademarked names, I am a bit more biased toward actual performance, and it sounded quite good to me.

* I remember reading a white paper by Carver that argued a vacuum state amplifier can "read" room response via Back-Emf as the output devices react with impedance changes by increasing or decreasing output on a frequency response basis rather than simple power output (which is well established). In that way a system with a vacuum state amp and a loudspeaker that responds well to use with one will sound more similar in different rooms than the same speaker driven by a (very low output impedance) transistor type.

Not sure what to make of it, really, and it wouldn't be the first time Carver offered an unorthodox theory he claims to have proven, at least to himself, but there you go. The part I find most curious is the effect on higher frequency networks and drivers. Carver claims it works right up past the upper midrange.

Feel free to come to your own conclusions.