Frantz made me do it

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Frantz and I had been communicating back and forth about the benefits of adding additional subs to augment a pair of full-range speakers. Frantz encouraged me to try it myself and recommended a couple of CDs for me to purchase to help dial in the sub. And I say sub because I only purchased one sub so far even though Frantz recommends at least another two.

My main speakers are a pair of Definitive Technology BP7000SC. These speakers each have a built in 14” sub powered by an 1800 watt amp. When I told a friend of mine that owns the same speakers that I was buying a subwoofer, he looked at me like I had grown a third eyeball. And I understood the look because anyone who owns the BP7000SC speakers knows how much bass output these things are capable of. So, because I do like my main speakers, I bought a Definitive Technology subwoofer, the SuperCube Reference. The SuperCube Reference just happens to use the exact same speakers and amp that is built into my main speakers. It has the 14” woofer and two 14” passive radiators powered by an 1800 watt amp. So now I have three 14” subs with a total of 5400 watts of power.

So I hook the new sub up and place it on the left wall, slightly in front of my main speakers and pointing towards the right wall. I played some cuts off the CDs that Frantz recommended (my favorite is “She’s Already Gone” from Lyle Lovett which is the CD that caused me to write the thread called “Are CDs Dying in the Marketplace”). I played around with the phase until I felt I had it locked in with my main speakers and set the volume pretty low. It only took a few seconds to realize that something special was going on. It pressurizes your room in a different way than it was before and the bass becomes smoother and tighter as a result. It’s hard to imagine the bass becoming even better with more subs, but I thought that before I purchased the first sub. For the here and now, I’m going to leave things alone for awhile as I’m so happy with the results.

Thanks Frantz for encouraging me to take the leap. My system has never sounded better which leads to another story…
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
So what/how did you integrate the sub with the mains?

I took the simple route. Awhile ago I had Michael Elliot convert one pair of the record outs on my preamp (Ciounterpoint SA-5.1) to a second set of main outputs. I just ran a pair of interconnects from the second set of main outs over to the sub. From there, it was just a matter of setting the phase and volume level. You never hear the sub as a source of sound which is as it should be. The volume on the sub is set way lower than my main speaker subs are. It was really pretty much a "set it and forget about" experience. It sounds so good I have no desire to keep futzing with placement or anything else. I highly recommend trying it. If you go the three sub route, you will need to buy the outboard gizmo box which lots of people are using so you can manage the multiple subs. That is another layer of complexity that I'm going to avoid for the here and now. The thought of having to convert the analog signal to digital and then back to analog doesn't thrill me. Nor does figuring out what type of crossover would sound better as that Behringer box has more tricks up its sleeve than a magician.
 

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