On 2005-03-31, andy wrote:
I'm not familiar with subwoofers and would appreciate advice on
creating
a shortlist to audition.

My suspicion is that it is difficult to gain a lot from auditions
outside your room because an unequalized subwoofer is going to be
dominated by driving the room modes. If your main motivation was to
gain some bass oomph that might be fine but an attempt at accuracy is
going to be a lot more challenging.

Thanks for that. It seems that getting the right shortlist is likely to
help me weed out those which it would be no use to try out at home.

I did spend a fair bit more than the price of a mid-range sub at each
of a couple of local audio emporia not too long ago so I was going to
ask for a home demo. Thus I want to get some independent advice on how
to avoid trying out any non-starters.

I suspect that wanting subtlety more than oomph (challenging as you say)
means I do not really need the biggest driver/box/amp (I was actually
assuming an active box) as long as it's big enough for the room.
The trouble is I have no idea of what's big enough. I guess going in
without a good idea of what's right will tend to encourage advice veering
towards the unnecessarily big and expensive.

A couple of suggestions: ask for a demonstration in a modest sized room
of the difference between a simple passive subwoofer and one that tries
to compensate for driving the room modes. Alternatively, compare the
passive subwoofer against a good pair of headphones. This may not tell
you what will happen in your own room but it should give some feel for
what is missing without a subwoofer and whether a passive subwoofer
(with large deviations due to room modes) is going to provide an
acceptable improvement or just add a bit oompth and sound a bit weird.

Yes. I think that's a good idea to get a calibration first of all in
the dealer's demo room of the difference I can expect. Thanks.

--
John Phillips