The benefit of having stereo subwoofers is greatly recording dependent. The recording method that takes the greatest advantage of capturing bass in stereo is "spaced omnidirectional". This microphone technique captures both intensity and time information. Co-incident and near co-incident techniques such as X-Y, crossed figure 8s, ORTF etc, capture only intensity differences, and thus are less likely to display enough information to make stereo bass audible. Studio recordings can go either way, depending on the particular microphone techniques employed, how many musicians are playing together in the same room, and panning.

On recordings I make, I use three spaced omnidirectional microphones in much the same manner that the classic Mercury recordings were made, and which Telarc mostly uses. The effects of stereo bass are most apparent when recording in large spaces with long low frequency decay times. Several recordings of pipe organs I've made in large churches display a beautiful sense of space from the directionality of the low frequency ambience.