The great part of all of this is that each of us will find our own way to truly feeling/touching/ hearing the beauty that music brings into our lives. We will end up in different places. Beyond the science of sound pressure and standing waves and distortion measurement lies the magic of really feeling something deeply meaningful which is not subject to the laws of science. Helping other people find their way frequently reveals more about our own path than theirs. I know that’s true of me for sure.
Rockport Orions with a subwoofer?
- Thread starter Cincy2
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Completely depends on your room, speaker and sweet spot placement, treatment and your taste.
Without sounding like a commercial I don't agree on the sub issue. IMO almost any speaker can benefit from the addition of subs however all subs are not created equally. Most subs I have tried do not integrate well for two channel. I have found that they usually have a sonic signature that does not match the main speakers. I am not going to name names as I dont want to go there but assuming that the sub you pick is the same as all the rest is just not true.
I am not saying that these subs are bad but rather they are not universal and most were truly aimed at the HT market not the two channel audience.
The ability to integrate two additional boxes in a listening room however can be a challenge. To stick these boxes whewre it is convenient won't work in most cases. They will also not work if the quality, speed and resolution of the woofer can't match the main speakers. In most cases the result is listeneing to apples with oranges and when that occurs it is better to take the subs out.
I believe that Oliver Goebel has created subs that can do this, not cheap or small, and I have used them so far with great success with two of our speakers which makes me believe they will work ( in the right spaces) with other speakers.
I am not saying that these subs are bad but rather they are not universal and most were truly aimed at the HT market not the two channel audience.
The ability to integrate two additional boxes in a listening room however can be a challenge. To stick these boxes whewre it is convenient won't work in most cases. They will also not work if the quality, speed and resolution of the woofer can't match the main speakers. In most cases the result is listeneing to apples with oranges and when that occurs it is better to take the subs out.
I believe that Oliver Goebel has created subs that can do this, not cheap or small, and I have used them so far with great success with two of our speakers which makes me believe they will work ( in the right spaces) with other speakers.
I respect your experience but I think we have to be careful here. Different listeners have different goals and sensitivities. You list a number of pitfalls which are elementary to the topic. Going deeper it is clear to me that there is no universal answer to this question. I do not believe the major roadblock is quality or technology. It has more to do with a non co-located wave launch at least for me. Many/most will likely prefer high quality expertly integrated subs because they more highly value the positives that subs bring than I do. Anyone going down this road should be prepared for a couple of days of fine tuning the integration. The average high fi store will struggle to get it done right. There are only a handful of people I would trust. . My ears prefer to do without although I admit lots of cool things happen when you get subs right. Bottom line if you go with subs getting the right help to integrate them is WAY more important than buying the newest most expensive subs you can find. The problem is the physics not the transducers assuming you are purchasing well engineered well made subs from competent manufacturers.
Answering both statements - The quality and the integration via help if needed both matter. And sub quality and room challenges (physics) again both matter.
Net - it all matters and more so as you climb the sonic ladder.
Late to the subwoofer party...
It seems the goal of adding subwoofers is to augment the main speakers in a manner the that is wholly indistinguishable from the mains. The trick is how to do this. There are a lot of pitfalls. I am not saying I am an expert in this field but I have experimented with several different subwoofer brands, the number of subwoofers in my room and types of integration. So I will offer some of my thoughts and experiences.
In my limited experience I have observed that not all subwoofers are created equal and as one of the posters above pointed out many of them are aimed squarely at the home theater market. The issue of getting a pair of great subwoofers that are going to perfectly integrate leads us to the main issue -- money. What we typically see is that someone has a pair of $100K+ speakers and wants to buy a $3k-$5k (or maybe less)subwoofer that has built in, off the shelf, plate amps and use cheap cables to connect it. This is quite a disparity. It is no wonder the result is often not satisfactory and the owner of the subs throws up their hands and just says "Subwoofers just don't work with my speakers!". As cmarin quoted his setup guru as saying, paraphrase: "this is going to take a lot of time and money if you want to get it right". If we want the great, deep bass, along with the other goodies that come along with it like soundstage and envelopment, then we have to start treating the bottom octave with some respect.
And once we have the perfect subwoofer there is the issue with proper setup. Even a perfect subwoofer not setup well is going to sound at best mediocre. Getting this part right is extremely challenging and requires a very good ear and a lot of experience. Just my opinion but If someone is trying to integrate a pair of subs with measurements only then it is not going to end well. I posted in another thread about how integrating a woofer affected how an oboe solo sounded. When not properly aligned (I am talking microseconds off here) the oboe sounded quite bad. When the woofer was correctly aligned the oboe sounded phenomenal. There is no way I know of to detect this with our current measurement capability.
The Rockports certainly have articulate bass. Matching that is not trivial. It just depends on how badly one wants it.
The subs I personally want are from a company called PureLow. Look them up. Not cheap but integrating a pair of these would be pure bliss with any speaker. Unfortunately, getting a pair with the required matching amplifier, cables and crossover is going to cost almost as much as a pair of mains.
It seems the goal of adding subwoofers is to augment the main speakers in a manner the that is wholly indistinguishable from the mains. The trick is how to do this. There are a lot of pitfalls. I am not saying I am an expert in this field but I have experimented with several different subwoofer brands, the number of subwoofers in my room and types of integration. So I will offer some of my thoughts and experiences.
In my limited experience I have observed that not all subwoofers are created equal and as one of the posters above pointed out many of them are aimed squarely at the home theater market. The issue of getting a pair of great subwoofers that are going to perfectly integrate leads us to the main issue -- money. What we typically see is that someone has a pair of $100K+ speakers and wants to buy a $3k-$5k (or maybe less)subwoofer that has built in, off the shelf, plate amps and use cheap cables to connect it. This is quite a disparity. It is no wonder the result is often not satisfactory and the owner of the subs throws up their hands and just says "Subwoofers just don't work with my speakers!". As cmarin quoted his setup guru as saying, paraphrase: "this is going to take a lot of time and money if you want to get it right". If we want the great, deep bass, along with the other goodies that come along with it like soundstage and envelopment, then we have to start treating the bottom octave with some respect.
And once we have the perfect subwoofer there is the issue with proper setup. Even a perfect subwoofer not setup well is going to sound at best mediocre. Getting this part right is extremely challenging and requires a very good ear and a lot of experience. Just my opinion but If someone is trying to integrate a pair of subs with measurements only then it is not going to end well. I posted in another thread about how integrating a woofer affected how an oboe solo sounded. When not properly aligned (I am talking microseconds off here) the oboe sounded quite bad. When the woofer was correctly aligned the oboe sounded phenomenal. There is no way I know of to detect this with our current measurement capability.
The Rockports certainly have articulate bass. Matching that is not trivial. It just depends on how badly one wants it.
The subs I personally want are from a company called PureLow. Look them up. Not cheap but integrating a pair of these would be pure bliss with any speaker. Unfortunately, getting a pair with the required matching amplifier, cables and crossover is going to cost almost as much as a pair of mains.
I agree wwith you and like everything else in audio a DAC is not a DAC, A cartridge is not just a Cartridge and a Sub is not just a sub. They all "do " some of the same things but how they do that is not equal. I was at Carlos's home with Stirling and I also thought the subs he had were a distraction not a positive thing. This however does not mean that something different would not work, in fact quite the opposite.
The first sub that I have b
een crazy about is the one in the pictures. Cheap NO, small NO, relatively easy to get great performance YES. That is not saying its plop and play but it can and will integrate with the room and other speakers. Todd I know you have horns , I have no experience in that area so I am going to plead the 5th there however Rockport is not that dissimilar in the way it works or sounds from mine, or a Stenheim and a few others I have listened to a bunch.I have not done a set of Lyra's or Orion's but I am very confident that it can be done and done really well. Oliver is a very sharp young man with a ton of knowledge and expertise, both musically and scientifically. Its why I got involved with the brand. Josh Clarke is a friend and I really like the speakers they make and under different circumstance would love to represent them. My business is too small to sell those two brands.
By the way the nice thing is these subs are easy to play around with and can do it from you listening position , so you can do it alone and there are 4 presets if you are one of those that wants to screw around with different settings for different things. It took me a while but once they were settled in I adjusted one at a time until I was happy. Then listened for a while ( two weeks) with out touching anything and at last one slight change, which was probably full break in to turn them down a smidge.
My client had a six pack and sold it after 3 months and swore no more subs. He now has two of the ones in the picture with his Noblesse and could not stop praising the result.
I respect your reply as well but I do not agree that a bunch of subs will do. I have tried the bunch and more bunches and they are good for home theater not music. Too slow, too heavy and not matched to the high quality of the speakers and the customers expectations that buy these things.
I know that you have not tried or listened to the Sovereigns, thats my fault more than anything , but alas I am a small business with only som many resources and I have decided after two difficult attepmts it not something I can do in the small amount of time at a show . This means they are harder to experience, I acknoledge that and take full responsibilty.
Audio has too many things trying to make everything mostly the same IMO that is just not true.
To be clear I don’t believe “ a bunch of subs will do” integrating with Orions (which I have purchased) is definitely tricky. Neither Andy nor Josh nor John would recommend it. I k ow because we’ve talked at length about it. Remember Andy is one of the early guys to employ subs into his designs which he no longer does. This doesn’t make them or me right about it. I really enjoyed subs with my Cygnus. Knowing all the white papers and buying the best understanding the physics all are just the beginning. For me it’s taken a lifetime to come to my conclusion which is only really valid for me and my tastes. I truly understand where you’re coming from. I encourage all to attempt the journey. It’s ok if we come to different conclusions. Everyone has a right to them
I wanted to add after talking with a client about the subject last night that subs are an interesting thing when it comes to peoples expectations.
First perfect is the enemy of great! What i mean by that is you will never ever be prefect for every single recording in your collection. This is true for speaker placement as well but people add a sub and are constantly listening to hear it screw up or the recording screw up or they want to hear it since they paid for it.
Tuning a sub so that it integrates and does not impart its own sound into the system is my goal. I ususally demo them in and out on the smallest pieces of music so one understands what the goal is. When you start playing other items particularly rock all the recordings have very different bass situations. You can't tune your system for the wrong but rather for the right and live with the wrong. I hope that makes sense. The Sovereign does has multiple presets so if one wanted they good set up multiple positions for such recordings, me personally I don't.
My client drives himslef crazy but wanting every recording and every sesson to sound perfect IMO this isnt possible.
Most woofers I have tried have thier own identity and sonic signature, I mean by this that they really dont match well with the speakers or they have the one note bass syndrome. The bass is clear and there but it always sounds the same. I got involved with OPliver becasue his speakers never had this characteristic and by themselves had the most articulate bass and coioherence top to bottom I had heard. ROckport also does this really well, A sub however adds something that is hard to get from any single speaker since they can't be in two places at the same time.
To JIminGa - I dont doubt your experience nor the place you are coming from. Most speaker designers would never say our speakers require a woofer and to be frank thats true. There is a difference however between need and want.
There is a high price to be paid for this luxury, that I understand and with most speakers that price is just too high, that too I understand, but for the top of the mountain and those who seek to get there two amazing subs can make the summit achieveable.
First perfect is the enemy of great! What i mean by that is you will never ever be prefect for every single recording in your collection. This is true for speaker placement as well but people add a sub and are constantly listening to hear it screw up or the recording screw up or they want to hear it since they paid for it.
Tuning a sub so that it integrates and does not impart its own sound into the system is my goal. I ususally demo them in and out on the smallest pieces of music so one understands what the goal is. When you start playing other items particularly rock all the recordings have very different bass situations. You can't tune your system for the wrong but rather for the right and live with the wrong. I hope that makes sense. The Sovereign does has multiple presets so if one wanted they good set up multiple positions for such recordings, me personally I don't.
My client drives himslef crazy but wanting every recording and every sesson to sound perfect IMO this isnt possible.
Most woofers I have tried have thier own identity and sonic signature, I mean by this that they really dont match well with the speakers or they have the one note bass syndrome. The bass is clear and there but it always sounds the same. I got involved with OPliver becasue his speakers never had this characteristic and by themselves had the most articulate bass and coioherence top to bottom I had heard. ROckport also does this really well, A sub however adds something that is hard to get from any single speaker since they can't be in two places at the same time.
To JIminGa - I dont doubt your experience nor the place you are coming from. Most speaker designers would never say our speakers require a woofer and to be frank thats true. There is a difference however between need and want.
There is a high price to be paid for this luxury, that I understand and with most speakers that price is just too high, that too I understand, but for the top of the mountain and those who seek to get there two amazing subs can make the summit achieveable.
Elliot, I believe the Soverign is a great subwoofer. Oliver certainly puts in the engineering effort and pays a lot of attention to details that many of other speaker manufacturers seem to gloss over. Unfortunately, I have not heard it setup with the Goebel (Or other speakers). Using it with the Goebel's certainly seems a recipe for success as Oliver has specifically designed it to work with them. It appears he is even using the same woofer with means the deep bass is tonally the same as the rest of the spectrum.
I get what you are saying about great vs perfect. It does seem some want the subwoofer to wear two faces. One that disappears when playing jazz or orchestral music and just provides that sense of space. And one that is beating on the walls when playing rock or EDM. Hard to have both. Best to set the subs up for the first option and then crank the volume for rock/EDM if that is wanted. Let's face it, most of us are not expecting too much from that AC/DC recording.
I get what you are saying about great vs perfect. It does seem some want the subwoofer to wear two faces. One that disappears when playing jazz or orchestral music and just provides that sense of space. And one that is beating on the walls when playing rock or EDM. Hard to have both. Best to set the subs up for the first option and then crank the volume for rock/EDM if that is wanted. Let's face it, most of us are not expecting too much from that AC/DC recording.
Todd,
when you are crossing the subs over in the 40hz and down area they are there for the "space"
I use 35hz in my system with the Marquis and to be honest I don't listen to dance music, or Heavy metal but I do listen to rock ,jazz, and different types of classical. I believe if I can play things like Hilary Hahn and not notice the sub UNLESS i turn it off then I have done my job correctly.
If I am listening to say Steely Dan or Don Henley the system will sound great but every one of them has different drum and bass sound and sound levels, Most of the rock albums were mixed to sound good in car stereo, low end audio and inexpensive headphones. The varience is huge.
If I tried to adjust thee sub levels with this as the primary I'd never get it right and its with this I talk about perfect being the enemy of great. I know you put it lots of time with your gear so I know you get it. I also know that adding a sub not intended for use with the big boys most likely will fail. It did for me with the top brnads that I tried over my time. I believe thses products have their place but they are not universal and don't punch above their weight class.
Oliver did of course design these with his speakers obviously.The driver is incredibly light and fast. I believe it will work well withj others since there are a ton of possible crossover combos and adjustments.
You shoukl come check it out. I have decided that trying at shows is just not really possible to get it "perfect" lol
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Elliott I admire you. I truly do. You’ve been at this a long time and from what I can tell you are largely driven by passion for this amazing journey. That said I want to address two points you raised before I sign off on the discussion. For me this has nothing to do with cost. I’m not really encumbered financially and I’ve spent decades using subs. There is a lot to like about them.With respect to manufactures not admitting the need for subs I’m certain you recall Andy building in active subs in his speakers since the early 90’s. I’m pretty sure he’s open to the subject. He’ll have a new flagship out in the next year or two and he may indeed have built in active subs in them. My point, my ONLY point is that for me I don’t prefer them if they are in separate enclosures. I absolutely admit that most people may disagree and that’s fine. This thread is about a person asking about the Rockport Orion and the need for subs. I’ve given him my honest unbiased opinion. I have no financial stake in the outcome. The only way for them to really know is to listen in their own room to their own music because as I’ve said before he is listening to a room/system interaction which can only be assessed after trying it and carefully integrating it and then making a judgement.
JIm, I have no issue either with your choices. I did not like subs in most cases either UNTIL recently and with one specific product.
I doubt that this poster will ever get the chance to hear what I am talking about and to be honest very few will. Its not the type of thing that you can do easily at a show, in strange rooms in less than one day set up so I won't try again its just too frustrating.
For the few that might want what I mentioned they will have to take a trip and check out the results.
BY the way I really like Josh Clarke and we speak fairly often, interviewed him a while back as well for our forgotten attempt at a YOutube channel, but I have not discussed subs with him, nor do I think he had the chance to hear the Divin Sovereign ( I could be wrong he might have in Munich).
I have the ultmate respect for Andy, Josh and Rockport they make great stuff and are a wonderful company.
I do however think these subs would and can work with thier products quite well. My only point besides that all subs are NOT the same.
IME most subs sound inconsistent because of poor integration (which includes placement) and / or lofty expectations in smaller rooms. And most of us have smaller rooms. Get in a big enough room and consistent results are much easier to achieve.
agreed and the same can be said for using speakers that are too large for the space, Expectations can't be met because its the wrong tool for the job.
Too many audiophiles are trying to fix issues that they created for themselves
Intriguing! Did you hear this, or are you surmising based on something he might have said? I have an interview with him, along with 2 othe rmajor designers, and Andy Payor definitely said designing an amp for a single speaker is way way better if you can because otherwise the amp has to be designed for any number of loads. He also noted that it was not the market and one had to be mindful of what the audiophile market wants to buy.
That said, this was an interview of a number of years ago, and today with more active crossovers, more 4-tower speakers once again, and also YG coming out with built-in, along with Goldmund, Gryphon, Genesis, Martin Logan...I definitely could see Andy Payor coming back to visit that concept in a new flagship.
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