Is Subwoofer necessary?

[Vayra86]

Yep, I was trying to reinforce your point. When I said "you" I meant it in the context of anyone looking at these tiny multimedia speakers with "subwoofers"

Haha sorry my interpretation fail

 

[qubit]

Some of the best stereos I’ve heard had no sub attached and still rocked hard. I can’t speak for those little guys though. They probably sound ok..

Indeed, I prefer a 2.0 system.

Just get two high quality larger hi-fi speakers and you effectively get two subwoofers for really powerful bass. I’ve never liked this idea of only a mono speaker for the bass notes. The sound doesn’t integrate as well and one can tell bass direction, contrary to popular belief. Especially so when the music is recorded with the drummer hitting drums (or synth bass notes) on both sides of the sound stage as sometimes happens.

I’ve got two large hi-fi speakers dating from the 1970s that I bought used and still sound fantastic, with big bass.

You can do a lot with a sealed enclosure, DSP and tons of power. The tiny subs from REL and KEF are the real deal. Its the same concept used by portable bluetooth speakers use to make reasonable bass that would otherwise not be possible given their size and the volume they have to play with.

Yes, that’s true. The key here is “tons of power”. Those small speakers will need a very long cone excursion to compensate for their small size in order to move enough air.

 

[P4-630]

This 100W Harman Kardon puppy I have delivers a lot of bass as well....
It will blow you away the sound and volume that comes out of this speaker..

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Some of the best stereos I’ve heard had no sub attached and still rocked hard. I can’t speak for those little guys though. They probably sound ok..

I have Creative T40 series 2 and yeah they sounds good for how much they cost......sure the bass ain't that good when you missing subwoofer but personally I can live with that....also there are so much better 2 speakers solutions.....here nice video bellow just for comparison between T40 & Edifier R1700BT

 

[AsRock]

PC speaker sets are pretty much.... meh territory. Just buy an amp and a set of passive speakers and you're set for... decades, or life.

I'm now looking at 20+ years on my Harman kardon 5.1 setup, cost 450 bucks at the time. Hard to beat Over the years that setup has been the TV speaker set, done house parties/DJ sets... used monitor speakers on it for music production... and now it's serving as a 2.1 because you simply have that flexibility.

One thing got replaced over that time, and guess what... its the subwoofer. Its the single most vulnerable part of any music setup, especially an active sub. Similar things apply to active speakers relative to passive speakers - I would strongly suggest the latter, though for sub, its generally more (cost-) efficient to get an active unit (and a lighter amp since you don't need to power the sub from it).

Just go second hand, just make sure the HDMI connection ( if used ) meets your requirements.

 

[qubit]

This 100W Harman Kardon puppy I have delivers a lot of bass as well....
It will blow you away the sound and volume that comes out of this speaker..

View attachment 282211

I like the way this speaker looks like a ghetto blaster at first glance.

I'm not surprised you get a lot of bass out of it as so many small speakers plus that radiator add up to one large speaker. I'll bet it kicks!

 

[80251]

I had thought with high-fidelity stereo or quadraphonic (anyone remember those?) systems from the 1970's and 1980's the woofers built into speaker enclosures were supposed to provide enough bass response (along with mid-range and tweeters)?

 

[freeagent]

I had thought with high-fidelity stereo or quadraphonic (anyone remember those?) systems from the 1970's and 1980's the woofers built into speaker enclosures were supposed to provide enough bass response (along with mid-range and tweeters)?

My fave early 80s amp that I owned was my h/k 680i. It was an absolute monster lol.

12 inch Vegas were no match but surprisingly awesome, 15 inch Vegas were a great match.. it pounded as hard as my Adcom GTP450/GFA545 combo

 

[1freedude]

My fave early 80s amp that I owned was my h/k 680i. It was an absolute monster lol.

12 inch Vegas were no match but surprisingly awesome, 15 inch Vegas were a great match.. it pounded as hard as my Adcom GTP450/GFA545 combo

Yup, my H/K was a A-402 from '77. It powered two C/V D-3s. I also had a powered DCM sub. DCM couldn't touch the Vegas. I now have AT-15s. Thumpy thumpy. Powered by car amp....again, dedicated sub FB212 can't touch Vegas

 

[freeagent]

again, dedicated sub FB212 can't touch Vegas

As in Monitor Audio?

I have that sub too lol

Yeah those Vegas kicked ass. I wish I had them at the apartment heheh.

Edit:

Whoops mine is FB-210.. two tens not two twelves.. that would've been nice

 

[P4-630]

I like the way this speaker looks like a ghetto blaster at first glance.

I'm not surprised you get a lot of bass out of it as so many small speakers plus that radiator add up to one large speaker. I'll bet it kicks!

There's a second passive radiator at the back

 

[Veseleil]

I have Creative T40 series 2 and yeah they sounds good for how much they cost......sure the bass ain't that good when you missing subwoofer but personally I can live with that....also there are so much better 2 speakers solutions.....here nice video bellow just for comparison between T40 & Edifier R1700BT

Edifier murders them though.

 

[tussinman]

Good post by Bill. I'm real into car audio so I thought I'd chime in on a few things.

Don't confuse watts with quality. More watts does not mean better quality. Neither does loudness. There are way more factors involved such as speaker efficiencies, distortion, frequency response, distortion, dispersion, distortion - just to name a few. Did I mention distortion?

Exactly. In the car audio world people make fun of speakers from brands like Morel or Audiofrog. You'll hear things like "oh those are only 60 watts RMS speakers mine are 200 watts RMS and cost less !!" but in reality, those audiofrog and morel speakers get louder on 50 watts then those other speakers do on 300 watts........ (Along with having less distortion and a flatter response curve)

Rumbles from a high-quality system can be very entertaining - when realistic and not over exaggerated. I think we must also note the words "woofer" and "subwoofer" came out of the audio reproduction industry for listening to music. That is, when the woofer (and/or sub) were part of a "stereo" system.

These speakers are intended for music, but also things like loud explosions and other sounds intended to "rumble".

Agreed. When tuned right (no distortion and loud enough to blend in with the mids and highs) it's a very pleasant sound. The rumbling noise you'll 100% notice on frequencies below 50hz which for most subwoofers is where they really shine.

The ones that really bother me are those in cars when I can hear them coming from three blocks away. And I am not talking about the sound coming from the subwoofers. I am talking about the rattling door panels and fender. If is really sad when the distortion is louder than the music. And what's worse is they actually think that sounds good!

Very funny and true. In the car audio world the sub install (box, deadening, electrical upgrades, tuning, and efficiency) will make your break your performance. I've personally dealt with $1000 substage setups that sound louder and clearer than a $4000 setup, it happens all the time ! You can't take shortcuts, the install is everything

The rattling is bad not just for the people blocks away but for the driver himself, when you let the sound waves vibrate/escape your car with no resistance you're losing a lot of performance. It's crazy how something as simple as sound deadening ($40-50 worth of material and 2 hours of your time) can drastically lower the ambient noise of the car, drastically increase the perceived noise of the sub, and can make it really quiet for those blocks away.

I did a 3 layer treatment for my entire car (deadener to deaden the panels, closed cell foam to prevent the panels from resonating with each other, and mass loaded vinyl to physically block sound from coming in) and my car sounds like a bomb shelter when I drive 70mph on the highway. With the ambient noise being that low along with the efficiency of the subs, an actual custom designed box, and having my electrical upgraded (aftermarket alternator) my single sub setup is louder than 90% of the setups i've ever heard in my entire life that run 3x the power

Edit: forgot to add another huge benefit of a subwoofer (besides the obvious which is gaining those frequencies) is that you can up the LPF of the mids since now the mids don't need to play that low anymore. This is huge because the 2 most common causes of harshness/ear fatigue is the mid woofer either playing too low or the mid overlapping too much with the tweeter

 

[80251]

@tussinman
Can you still hear car horns or sirens from inside your rolling audio studio?

 

[freeagent]

Can you still hear car horns or sirens from inside your rolling audio studio?

It still has glass

 

[AsRock]

My fave early 80s amp that I owned was my h/k 680i. It was an absolute monster lol.

12 inch Vegas were no match but surprisingly awesome, 15 inch Vegas were a great match.. it pounded as hard as my Adcom GTP450/GFA545 combo

Back then their was some real forceful sound amps, some technics were good with vegas as you could turn them up more as the treble on some was smoother.

Be nice to hear some of those on the older Yamaha MX amps hehe.

 

[johnspack]

Used to love those huge tower speakers with the 12" or larger woofers in them.... but now sattelite speakers with a sub use far less room and have much better bass.....
Tech moves on.....

 

[Bagerklestyne]

For gaming, I have marginal to no use for a sub, for tv some of the time and for good movie experience it's a necessity in my book.

Despite headphones not being real surround sound I find them largely adequate for most casual watching.

I would bother with a sub for a gaming setup, but I couldn't do without one in a home theatre.

I would also set fire to myself before I buy a soundbar (glorified center speaker imo)

Car audio is a different kettle of fish and for me it's got to pass the 4x 100 test (or 4x 60 in freedom units) which is highway speed, all windows down, can I still comfortably here and feel, that's probably enough.

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Edifier murders them though.

Sure yeah.....they are better 'tho also more expensive....

 

[Sithaer]

Headphones might be the way to go in order to avoid annoying others.

Yeah thats exactly the case where I live, we are 5 in the house 'parents/brother/+ sister since she recently moved back' so using anything other than a headset would cause annoyance and arguments following soon.
Tbh I've been using headsets all my life, only bought a cheap 2.1 system when I had a guest in my room and I needed something to watch movies with,etc but I did not use that ever since and I stashed it away.

I don't mind this, for my casual use case this is enough. 'I don't really like anything loud anyway, my ears are too sensitive to it'

 

[..0]

yes always, full range sound reproduction is the basics.

 

[P4-630]

Ask your neighbors...

 

[Pumper]

No. I have Edifier R1850DB and had to tune down the lows in Equalizer APO because it was impossible to listen to any YT video with all that low end rumbling. Same thing with music.

So just get decent sized stereo speakers and you'll have all the subwoofing you need.

 

[Chrispy_]

The bigger the drivers are in your speakers, the less need there is for a subwoofer.

In my living room I have a sub that goes down to 30Hz before rolloff and two of the other six drivers are 6" so they go down to 54Hz before rolloff.

I am very happy with the bass response of those 6" drivers without the subwoofer turned on. For just about all music and TV the subwoofer adds very little to the experience at normal volumes - at least volumes that won't have the neighbours banging on my door.

Where the subwoofer adds to the experience is in sound effects, IMO. With the sub turned off, everything still sounds great but those last 24Hz make the rumbles and booms sound more authentic (or at least more cinematic).

I'm not really an audiophile, but if your main drivers aren't at least 4" you're going to feel that something is missing without a subwoofer to pick up the sub-100Hz frequencies. A 4" driver can just about produce 100Hz without sounding like ass but I would imagine that most people expect "good bass" to be down at 60-80Hz, depending on who you ask.

 

[Wirko]

Your subwoofer shouldn't be making audible sounds. Just low LFE and some rumbles. If you "hear" the subwoofer, your doing it wrong.

This statement contradicts itself. Of course you're supposed to hear it. Down to 20 Hz with your ears and down to almost zero with your guts.

But you do have a point: the lowest frequencies, those below 40 Hz or so, do not have a musical pitch that a human can discern. The same is true for the highest frequencies, above 4-5 kHz or so.