3.1 vs. 5.1 - which one?

[phillyrx]

I dont know what kind of deal, but you get something for getting it all at once. The guys at SVS are great to talk to so just tell them what you are doing and see what they say.

thanks greg! they're closed on the weekend, so i'll be calling them first thing monday morning

 

[gus6464]

How do you know it's a "great" subwoofer? Have you heard it? Do you own it?

That's not any better than some people recommending a sub because of some measurements and not because they have actually heard or owned one.

Not referring to you mazer but I am pretty sure you can guess who.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

That's not any better than some people recommending a sub because of some measurements and not because they have actually heard or owned one.

Not referring to you mazer but I am pretty sure you can guess who.

And just because someone says, "I have personally listened to this Subwoofer and it actually sounds great" doesn't make it great either. What may sound great to one person may sound too "boomy" for another person.

Everything is based on opinions. If 3 other people have listened to the same subwoofer that I listened to, but I'm the only person who thinks it's great, does it make it great or bad? It's just my opinion over their opinions or their opinions over mine.

Let's say you have listened to Subwofer "A" along with 5 other people. You loved it, but the other 5 did not. I did not listen to Subwoofer "A". Can I say that Subwoofer "A" is not a great Subwoofer even though I have not listened to it?

 

[Twexcom]

WmAx told me that the Sierras have superior boxes, but inferior drivers, and said I should go with the CBM-170. He said that the Sierra would still sound better, but that I can improve the performance of the CBM-170 SE with modification. He also said that the CBM-170 has the best value.

 

[avaserfi]

That's not any better than some people recommending a sub because of some measurements and not because they have actually heard or owned one.

I would be one of those people who recommends loudspeakers and subwoofers based solely on credible third party measurements and there are some very good reasons for it. Firstly, as Floyd Toole (NRC/Harman) notes subjective reviews have a variety of factors that effect ratings of loudspeakers due to a variety of factors such as bias, loudspeaker-room interaction, lack of standardization etc...Furthermore, a large portion Toole's and other perceptually based research is focused on correlating subjective loudspeaker measurement in a controlled environment directly to measurements. In fact, there are cases in which both Toole and Ian Paisleys (NRC/Mirage) research where numerous trials were completed with thousands of individuals and a statistically large majority (in fact nearly all) of the participants were found to prefer speakers with a wider off-axis response that maintains a similar magnitude to that of the on-axis than speakers with large dissimilarity.

While many people have it drilled in their head that speaker choice is something that is extremely individualistic nearly all credible research points in the opposite direction. Thus, gaining a true understanding of this data will allow one to properly correlate listener preference to credible third party research.