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Bass management case study . . .

Robert, you may be interested in some quite interesting views on bass management by Chuck Ainlay in an article published on HighFidelityReview.com.

The link is below.

FWIW, I do find that a properly calibrated sub which goes down to 16Hz is invaluable in order to hear the full-range which the artist intended. And even though my TDL "transmission line" fronts (which I run full-range) go lower (i.e. to 30Hz) than many other similarly-sized floorstanders (those which use a simpler bass-reflex rear or front port), I still find that I DO fill-out their bottom-end very nicely by connecting high-level Neutrik input from the front L/R power-amp outputs to my REL STORM-5 setting the REL's low-pass filter cutoff slope to 27Hz.

In short, this approach does make all the difference, which I hear clearly! In essence, the REL ‘kicks-in’ and adds another useful octave at the bottom, where my TDL mains are no longer able to, thus literally extending my large mains. I mean, with a suitable stereo track, close your eyes, and you’d never know that the extra frequency extension wasn’t actually coming from the TDLs themselves!
Now spend about 10 minutes getting used to it, and then turn the sub off in mid-song, and suddenly you notice the difference, as if a high-pass filter has suddenly been applied — even though there’s no filter at all on the mains. That’s really the best test of all. :)

Now, turning to surround music, my "small" center speaker and "small" rear-surrounds are filtered at source with an 80Hz crossover which goes into the LFE input of the REL. (The REL conveniently has both high-level AND low-level inputs which can be used simultaneously, and each have their own dedicated gain control, which I can finely adjust from my sofa by digital remote control in steps of one dB.) Again, ‘proof of the pudding’ is when I play tracks like Foreigner’s "Juke Box Hero" which is mastered with an intense ‘rotating’ bass guitar going round the room (i.e. front-right, to center, to front-left, to back-left, then to back-right etc. etc ), full-range signal into all speaker channels — rear & center ones included.)

... and the BM works!! :)

Now if I take off the bass-management (i.e. run all speakers 'full-range'), then suddenly you become aware that the rears and center are actually "small" speakers.

By the way, as Christine points out, you really DON’T want to get unwanted bass-redirect phase-cancellation in the sub itself, so I keep everything on the front wall — i.e. front-left, center, front right, AND sub — all in EXACT phase (i.e. given them the same 2.5m speaker distance setting). I do still use the time-alignment on the rears (i.e. set them to just 1m distance), since my sofa is on the back wall, and so are my wall/corner-mounted rear speakers. In short, the results please me -- and my guests.


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