QuestionI am still the admirer of stereo sound and have sony old-timer stereo amplifier (working perfectly), i also have hand made lodspeakers supporteed with "audax" drivers (working perfectly). The spekers are two-way construction and with decent cubage not sure exactly but they are 92cm high.
Why i am telling you all this: I want to move (hope forward) to surround sound.
The plan is to purchase "Harman Kardon avr135" receiver. The central speaker and the pair of front speakers will be from the same manufacurer as the pair i own, just that they will be three-way with an extra bass driver and with a little bigger cubage. You figured out that i will use existing owns as rear.
Finaly, the question: Since i live in flat with people above and under me :-), and will have speakres with excellent bass, do I realy need to buy subwoofer. Or i can put the question this way: does subwoofer send some signals that you can't hear on other chanels or it just gives the low frequency sound (vibration). If second is the case, maybe i should avoid buying it couse i am sure i will have enough bass. The other thing is that the system will be used mostly for music listening and rearly for movies. So maybe i don't need even to buy that back chanel that i understood is supported by the mentioned receiver.
Thanks very much in advance,
Best Regards
Marko
AnswerDear Marko,
The question of whether to add a subwoofer or not to a principally music system depends on (1) how much bass your front channel/stereo speakers will render and (2) how much you crave the deep bass they won't.
The first factor depends on the frequency response of your front channel/stereo speakers. If they go down to 50Hz, then you have more than enough bass for all but the pickiest recordings. Between 35Hz and 50Hz, the bass is still audible, but it takes a lot of juice to coax it out. Below 35Hz, you start to get into audible vs. felt issues, but you definitely need a subwoofer--unless you're investing in a couple of Wilson Audio $60K behemoths, which you're not.
The second factor is personal taste. My personal test for acceptable bass in a speaker that I'm considering purchasing is Enya's "Orinoco Flow". The end of the bridge has a half dozen notes that descend to around 35Hz. If the speaker can capture them cleanly, that's one tick in the plus column. This is my way of suggesting that you pick a recording in which the bass reproduction is critical to your listening enjoyment. If you hear what you expect, pass on the sub. If not...
Keep in mind that subwoofers don't have to be extremely loud to be effective. In fact they shouldn't be any louder than the front channel speakers. Keep in mind also that because a low frequency signal is an extremely long wave, subwoofers--even the low throw woofers in 2- and 3-way speakers--are prone to setting up what are called standing waves in the listening room. These highlight the bass to an annoyingly high/loud level and are difficult to contain. So why invite trouble by adding more bass with a subwoofer?
As far as home theater is concerned, IMHO about 90% of all audio information in most movies is carried by the front channel/stereo speakers. Another 5% is carried by the center channel speaker for dialog reinforcement, and the rest by the surrounds, rear channel speakers, and subwoofer. We listened to movies happily for years with only front and center channel speakers. Although we enjoy surround sound, and it can be very exciting, in the end it's not essential.
Good luck! And thanks for choosing allexperts.com!
Kindest regards,
Kevin
