Forgot to say i listen to classic music quite a lot. Bach, Rahmaninov, Chaikovski, Vivaldi, Chopin. Would not like to loose anything in those recordings.
There is a chasm of difference of opinion between the UK and North America about subs. I think this is because of the much greater amount of orchestral music listened to in the UK. I firmly believe you do have to plan your system differently depending whether you are in the rock/pop or classical camp largely.
Most UK speaker manufacturers strongly discourage setting main speakers to small, and just gently supplementing the bottom end if you use a sub.
The reasons for this are compelling.
Here is the frequency spectrum of most orchestral instruments.
I'll add the tuba which comes in different sizes with fundamental ranging from 29 to 44 Hz.
The orchestral bass drum is of particular interest, as it can give the orchestra at times that massive punch and wallop.
The initial crack is a huge energy output from 100 Hz to 15 KHz with a decay from 20 Hz to 100 Hz. The big energy punch is in the attack.
You will see that only three instruments have fundamentals just below 30 Hz. Only very large pipe organs have fundamentals at 18 Hz and most not below 32 Hz. That is because most organs only have 16 ft stops at the deepest and not 32 ft.
Now the preponderance of the energy radiated by instruments is in the range of the fundamental.
So you can see where the power is really required, it is from around 60 Hz to 1.5 KHz. And I will say this again, but the bass range extends to at least 600 Hz and many would say 900 Hz. Mid range starts somewhere between 600 and 900 Hz. I tend to think the higher number is more realistic.
When you really absorb what I have been saying you realize where amp and speaker power really needs to be concentrated. You can clearly see it is not in sub range.
Not only that, but a sub not only really separates a lot of instruments from their fundamentals but actually puts a crossover right at the range of the fundamental of a lot of instruments.
I agree with one of my mentors, the late Ted Jordan, that crossovers have a deleterious effect separating fundamentals from harmonics. The usual sub crossover is in a terrible place. The flat room response is not the total package at all, as it says nothing about time, which is the neglected issue.
So this is why my speakers are designed the way they are. There are six voice coils handing the range from 45 to 600 Hz. Supplemented by two cones and voice coil covering 20 to 60 Hz.
There are is minimal violence done to phase which means time.
800 watts is allocated to the former range and 300 to the latter. The choice fully justified by the physics of sound reproduction.
The speakers are truly extraordinary. I had an engineer who teaches sound production come out here last week to see what the buzz. That was the first time I now there was a "buzz" on!
Any how he said he had been on lots of high end studios and had never heard such realistic reproduction at concert levels. So I'm now threatened with another mastering job in two to three weeks.
The point is that in your small room the type of speakers I outlined will do an excellent job of handling your musical preferences.
