When it comes to sub woofers and the presence of bass in your musical selection everybody is slightly different.  They say men are less sensitive to bass, that’s not a factual or scientific fact to which I can cite references, it’s just a collective observation from various audiophile types.  It’s been my contention that people have gotten past the more is better philosophy with bass.  I thought tastes in music departed from that drum and bass sound, but then; what do I know?  People I talk to on the message boards usually appreciate tightness of bass and don’t want boomy, the preference seemed that 8” subs are back in style.  But some out of towners came by over the weekend and discussed in no uncertain terms their preference for lots and lots of heavy bass.  I was even told by one that they have a 15” sub at home whose amp is rated at over a thousand watts.  I have seen some amazing home made sub-sonic weapons of mass destruction.  The DIY Shiva designs are very nice and I know they will make you a fine sub.  But most people use the design to the point of excess.  Many I’ve seen have me shaking my head asking myself why.

But, I have a larger than average room with a 30 foot length to provide bass to, I use a 12” 250W sub which I consider a little excessive.  I get more bass than I need when the volume is set to 35% I usually turn it down from there, I’ve rarely gotten it up above 50% volume just to be funny (to be fair my receiver’s dacs seem to favor a bassy sound, using the ext-input for DVD-Audio I will set sub to about 50% for a nice comfort level).  For added directional obscurity of the LFE channels and to balance out the bass I keep a nice tight sounding 8” sub behind the listening area opposite end of the big sub.  The volume on that one is always turned down just under halfway.  I consider smaller drivers, more musical.  If you’re listening to jazz, rock, classical or just about anything else except hip-hop, electronica or techno you really don’t need that much bass.  Over-represented bass sounds horrible listening to Crash Test Dummies or Aimee Mann and I dare any 15” sub to deftly follow a Stevie Ray Vaughn lick with the crossover set to anywhere near 100Hz.  I will go out on a limb to say that almost nobody needs a 15” sub with a 1000W amp in their house.  For pure movie watching maybe an oversized driver is nice to make the LFE sound ridiculous, there is certainly a fun factor in trying to shatter fine China with disc 2; chapter 46 of Lord Of  The Rings: Return of The King Director’s Cut.  But for most music it’s really just too much.

The principle is one seen over and over in nature.  Small things move faster.  Big things, though stronger, move slower.  As rabbits escape dogs so does an 8” sub deliver tight rapid response where the 15” will give you a muddy quality.  If you have a larger room and want to fill out the bottom end a little more adding another 8” sub is a better idea than replacing the 8” sub with a 10” or 12”.  The bigger driver will present deeper frequencies which is nice but a 12” sub will present all the subsonic frequencies you need at volumes you can feel in your chest.  The two sub configuration is becoming very popular with home theater mavens and fact theaters use multiple subs all the way around.  The orthodoxy prescribes that frequencies at or below 80Hz cannot be localized by the human ear.  Therefore sub positioning, particularly when the crossover is set at 80Hz which is the THX standard, is unimportant.  Corner load, point the sub opposite the listening audience and place it in the middle of the floor it doesn’t matter.  Actually what will matter is reflections causing frequency cancellations, but localization of the LFE is not an issue.

But some people prefer that high-school mentality that runs rife in the car audio world.  D. Bass booming from your car shaking every shred of glass in the parking lot of your high school is so… 90s.