I’m considering adding a pair of B&W DB2D subwoofers to my B&W 805D4 stand mount speakers.
Connection would be from the 332 RCA to subwoofers.
So the question is….will adding the subwoofers bring a performance equal or greater than floor standing speakers, accepting that the listening room may also influence decision.
B&W speakers seem to suit my listening environment etc and if I was to look at floor standing speakers it would most likely be the 803D4, but these would cost considerably more than the two subwoofers even with trading my current speakers.
I’m also unsure if my 300DR is up to the job of running the 803D4’s. However, I will most likely upgrade to 350’s within 18 months.
I appreciate there are other very capable subwoofers at this price point but the B&W’s seem the obvious choice to me with speaker matching and controllability.
Any forum members comments would be much appreciated on this topic.
Answering the thread question, the answer I am sure will depend on which standmounts with whch subs, vs which floorstanders, and on the room, placement options, and what amplification. I can’t comment on your specific gear thoughts As I am not familiar with them.
Adding a sub or two is going to be different to changing from standmounts to floorstanders. Whether it’s better, worse or just different will depend on the room acoustic and how you integrate the subs into your room. There are many variables.
Having used subs with standmounts for over 40 years, I’d say as a rule, no. A floorstanding speaker is designed to take into account crossover frequencies, driver outputs and, perhaps most important, relative locations of the drivers. Separating the drivers (even “non-directional” subs) is unlikely to give the same results as a well designed all-in-one floorstaner.
Having said that, I’ve never really had the option to have large floorstanding speakers in my home (SWMBO)!!!
I dissagree it all depends on the quality of the sub…and it’s dsp. I use a single Velodyne DD10+ with Vivid S12 speakers…you cannot detect the sub location the speakers go then down to around 30hz in my small room. These subs are expensive around 3.5k a pair of these would be epic…especially in a medium sized room. On my speakers I leave them alone no dsp…the sub just rolls in really smoothly. I think a fist rate sub can out perform most tower speakers….but not all. Your speakers with say a pair of DD18+ subs in a large room would take some beating…..
I agree with @Innocent_Bystander . It’s very much a “how long is a piece of string?” question.
In a feeble attempt to simplify an answer I might say that, with small speakers and subs you have multiple variables: the speakers, the subs, the room placement options, and the quality of the setup. So your chances of getting it wrong are far greater.
Well selected and skillfully set up subs can greatly increase scale and nuance. But the challenge of integration is usually vastly underestimated by the buyer or underrepresented by the dealer.
Also worth noting it will never save money. Quality subs aren’t cheap. I love subs and there are valid reasons for using them. Cost is not one of them.
Perhaps, though also, perhaps, the greater flexibility in placement might aid getting things right in difficult rooms.
Then of course some people use subs to improve the performance of floorstanders, whether because main speaker bass extension is limited, or to assist with room issues.
I agree there are many variables with subs. I disagree that the answer is it depends. Running subs on a Naim system, either using a preamp (line out) or high-level outputs directly from the amp(s), in my experience, is going to get you an inferior result to full range speakers 99.9% of the time.
Sure the sub may have a great DSP and you may be able to adjust your crossover point to perfectly align with your speakers. However, the biggest issue is time misalignment. Every sub has a non insignificant processing delay, and that delay is always going to mean that bass notes from the sub are late, every single time. And there is no magic trick, they will always be either late or later, depending on your sub phase settings. The only way you can fix this is if your sub supports delaying your main speakers to time align them, in which case you would need to route your signal through the sub first, and then to your amp/speakers. Which means forget the benefits of your fancy naim cables and your impedance matching between Naim components. Another option is to get a digital processor in front of your Naim amps (not ideal, you lose the 332). Buy the floorstanders I say.
As others have said, all depends. I’m using a pair of Proac D2R stand mount speakers with a pair of REL T/9x subs and it sounds amazing. I brought home and demoed a much larger pair of Proac floor standing speakers and they did not image as well as my D2R’s, nor did they have the bass output of the powered subs I’m using.
If I eventually move to a larger floor standing speaker I will absolutely keep the pair of REL subs.
If floor standing speakers aren’t an option, a carefully set up sub(s) will sound amazing with stand mount speakers.
Hi @Hallowed_be_thy_Naim - if you haven’t seen it, this is worth a read in SoundStage! Ultra by Jason Thorpe as it specifically references using B & W standmounts with B & W subs:
With some exceptions, as always, however what happens mostly (and the higher the quality/related to price):
standmounts - faster, more palpability and realism, pinpoint imaging and soundstage, act of disappearance
floorstanders - presence, scale, bigger sound
standmounts + sub(s) - trying for the best of both worlds but more often than not ironically ending up with worst of both. Good for cinema:). Endless adjustments and fiddling, whenever I’ve tried, I always realise I am listening to my sub assisted setup rather than to music.
Not entirely easy to make direct comparisons, I have tried this with Spendors - D1 vs D7.2 with a couple of Rel options.
I’l add my .02 too to back up this comment. I’ve just added a KC62 to a pair of LS50 Metas. I would concur that there is a lot of fiddling and I do at times find myself listening to the ‘setup’ vs the music. I’m always adjusting the crossover and volume to try and get the sound ‘right’ - which I have not yet done.
Is it better than just the bare LS50s? It definitely has more low end and fills out the room, but I’m not 100% convinced yet.
To add - only been a few weeks and I’ve not spent a ton of time listening, so could change in the future.
As I understand it the only way to overcome these timing issues is to have the sub nearer the listening position to compensate for the delay and adjust the phase from there.
This is one reason modern car audio has improved so much in recent years. I have an oem “premium” system with a sub in the boot. Everything runs through DSP and the sub actually plays slightly ahead of the rest of the speakers and as a result the entire sound stage sounds like it’s on the dash, perfectly integrated.
When I moved my system to a larger room, I tried a pair of SVS subs with my 805D3’s. I could never get them to integrate properly and they ended up replacing two lesser subs in my Cinema Room instead. My dealer recommended an S series sub from REL on the basis that it is fast and works better with B&W. Ultimately, I upgraded to 803D3’s and have never looked back. Good luck with whatever route you take but I’d suggest it includes a home demo.
It is hard to get the bace in the sub to integrate will. It is a bit of a catch 22. If you can hear the sub it is not integrated well. If you can’t hear it well what is the point?
You shouldn’t hear the sub as a separate speaker - but of course you should hear whatever bass there is in the recording that is lower than that which the main speakers reproduce at undiminished levels. If the main speaker is rolled off higher than its ‘natural’ cutoff then you should of course still hear whatever bass os in that region - but all should simply sound as part of the music and not something to do with the subs. What bass there is to hear from the sub depends of course on the music and the recording: With some it may be nothing other than ambient sounds that you may not even be aware of, while with other music it can be absolutely fundamental (pun not intended!) and obvious - in either case something that was missing or heavily curtailed from non-full-range main speakers.
Well set up, they dramatically increase the scale and perceived size of smaller speakers even at volumes where you don’t feel bass is noticable in any tactile way.
However, the negative view of subs doesn’t really surprise me and I said earlier that the difficulties in setup are either underestimated by the buyer or underrepresented by the seller.
I am on the more capable end of the spectrum for audio setup but I choose not to integrate subs into the main stereo system because it is sufficiently difficult to do really well. But I am not a sub naysayer either (I have three). I have a reasonably decent AV system by most standards and the processor comes with several tools for sub calibration. Even with those, it took about a month of fine adjustments to get them sounding totally transparent from a bass standpoint. But their impact on assisting smaller wall mounts to form a cohesive, non disjointed, wall of sound is immediately obvious even when the bass isn’t.
For this reason, I’d always recommend at least two but also, for stereo integration, dealer assisted setup with specialized tools combined with experience. The latter being critical. Too many people think REW and a mic makes them an expert but there’s a human “analogue” touch required.
Indeed they may, just as full range speakers do - but as I clarified a few days ago, despite some people’s impressions it absolutely is the bass that makes the difference, as that is all that comes out of a sub, but even when not identifying itself to one’s ears as bass it has a wide impact on the overall music presentation.
However, in the less common instances where the sub is not just added with roll-in to match main speaker roll-off, but instead the signal to the main speakers made to roll off the bass at a higher frequency and the sub to take over higher, the load on the main speaker’s bass or mid/bass driver is reduced and as a consequence the upper bass or even midrange could possibly clean up a little. That which would be additionally beneficial provided it is less than any adverse effect of the necessary additional signal filtering.