I suppose that if the subwoofers in curegeorg’s example had wonderful output down to 40Hz, and absolutely no output at 39Hz and below, there would be no bass extension benefit. However, most subs with normal roll-off and a rated low end of 40Hz are still going to have some workable output even half an octave lower at 28Hz. The setups mentioned by soundhound seek to take advantage of those frequencies still present below an individual sub’s rated low frequency. This doesn’t mean you’ll get a interactive rating of 28Hz, but 34Hz or so wouldn’t be unrealistic in this example.

In the articles I mentioned previously, two subs provided better bass extension than four subs or more, even if four subs would provide better overall room averaging. The article(s) also point out that a two or four sub setup has advantages over a theoretical 1000 sub setup and is better than each of the five or seven loudspeakers in a multi-speaker setup all reproducing bass into the subwoofer regions. The latter is true because the best placement of subs for best bass in a room are not usually where the other speakers reside. See the articles for details.


[This message has been edited by bestbang4thebuck (edited August 24, 2004).]