Try listening to "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," extended version; for a subwoofer workout. There are some scenes in which the same low frequency is constantly repeated to the point where my wife just looked at me as if to say "the windows in the room are going to crack." It is the first time I actually thought about grabbing the remote to trim the sub down a couple of decibels.

what scenes? got it but havent watched it yet... not that i would get to listen to it loud enough because i would get the "the bass is too loud" complaint with the first rumble...

I find this thread interesting as to what people think is a good bass demo for their subwoofers. I used to be thrilled by the wow factor of deep bass in movies. Rattling windows and shaking floors. But now my criteria is whether or not the bass in the music sounds clean and appropriate. Nothing is worse for me than booming bass when listening to music; as I listen to more music than watch movies.
That's my take on the criteria for a good sub.

i prefer the bass to sound as it was intended to sound, however that may be. i watch movies, so it is what it is.

Where can I obtain the info on the way it was intended to sound? A link or DVD special feature section?

MCH, the topic is "movie demo for your subwoofer." What movies do you watch for their music scores as a subwoofer demo? Titanic's score is good, but I never thought of using it as a movie demo. I believe the original question was for movies, that's why you have seen so many replies regarding the "thunderous" bass of movies and not the accuracy of music in this thread. I do agree with you regarding a sub's ability to compliment the mains for music.

Curegeorg, I cannot give you specifics right now, since it is late and my family would not appreciate me loading the movie right now. I remember the scenes being on disc two. Some help that is. When I get a chance to watch the movie again I will let you know.

just watched Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World again tonight and it rocks. the movie is pretty good as well, but the dts surround sound was even more impressive this second time. it was interesting to see that there was about 300mb larger of a sound file with this dvd than a typical dvd in dts. i know it has been mentioned before, but if you havent seen it yet, you are really missing out.

I was hoping that you'd have some info on this. I am very much interested in finding out about DVD audio experiences as intended by the director / engineer or whoever’s in charge of producing it.

well what i meant was that the sound reproduction should sound the same as the sound construction... i.e. how it is supposed to sound. no distortion or electronics interfering with the sound i am hearing. if a person is beating on a drum and you happened to hear that sound in person, ideally you would hear that exact sound being reproduced through your system when playing it back off of a recorded media. rather than making everything that comes out of my system sound the same or good, id just like to hear it as i am supposed to hear it. accuracy is important to me.

i dont think there is anyway for you to know how something is supposed to sound, unless you made it and recorded it and play it back (or something similar), but having practically no distortion and good equipment will get you very close...

if i can hear the "cue" of the bass drum (which is not bass) before the actual bass drum then i would guess something ain't right.

and i know ain't ain't a word because...