Is a subwoofer an absolute must for music listening?

A subwoofer without proper subwoofer management can end up hurting music rather than helping it. I personally have never been a big fan of subwoofer for music, but I also tend to prefer floorstanders over bookshelf speakers for that very same reason. Sub's also bring with them numerous issues regarding placement, resonance, boom, etc etc and more often than not end up being set to real low levels unless you have a proper listening room. Think about how practical it will be in your setup before investing in one.

good audiophile level subs are expensive.

on a similar note, does a car need four wheels? no

It depends on how much bass your speakers can output and how hard fitting a sub in your room would be. I had a sub with my Klipsch RB-61 in my bedroom but I could never find a proper spot for the sub that didn't just make the sound worse. I could only really put it in two places and it just wouldn't blend well with the Klipsch. The only solution was to turn the volume way down, which still did add a little bit to the bottom end, but it definitely wasn't worth the investment.

In the end I moved the sub to the living room when I bought my Energy CB-20 and it has been working a lot better there. Adds a lot of punch to the sound.

I believe a subwoofer is a must for music listening, that way you get the full frequency range represented, however, said subwoofer needs to be a good quality type that will integrate and sonically "disappear" - such as a REL.

Once a properly set up subwoofer is heard you wont want to go back to listening without it. Actually feeling sub bass adds so much to the enjoyment.

Having a quick look at the spec on the era 8 subwoofer and yes it looks quite decent, freq response only gets down to 35hz (Some Rel's will get below 20hz) but it looks nicely made and has a useful range of crossover features to enable you to blend it into your system nicely.

Hmm, i think you'll be better off with brands that are sub-focused, like svs, hsu, epik, rythmik, elemental designs.

I have a Rythmik F12 and it's extremely good with music -  tight, deep and clean. The sealed Epik and ED subs have pretty good rep for music as well. The new SVS sealed subs aren't out yet and their ported subs are more suited for HT duties.

Good, musical subs with great bass definition and accuracy are not cheap. Some people feel that for a HT, the subwoofer requirements are more stringent, but i personally don't think so. I believe that it's harder for a sub to do music well.

What i'm saying is, better to have no sub than to have a lousy one.

My satellites need it. But my brothers full size speakers certainly doesn´t need a sub. It can be a lot of work getting the sub to integrate well at least it was for me. But no I can´t really live without it now since my speakers don´t do to well below 50 hertz. I don´t really hear the sub but if I turn it off body goes missing so I think I got it going really well.

I don't use a sub with my GS10's and a lot of the time I don't need or miss one, but I do listen to quite a bit of electronic music and so sometimes miss the thump which it's obvious you're missing. Due to this I count my speakers as very good but i'm currently planning my subwoofer design, not particularly powerful but good extension, some music IMO needs it.

I have a Velodyne servo sub.  Despite how fast and little distortion it has for a subwoofer, it's still too slow to keep up with my headphones.  And most of my headphones are closed isolating type, so it's not a good mix.

Now back in the day, I used to use my sub with my K1000's for gaming and watching movies.  That was a lot of fun. 

-Ed

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood 

I have a Velodyne servo sub.  Despite how fast and little distortion it has for a subwoofer, it's still too slow to keep up with my headphones.  And most of my headphones are closed isolating type, so it's not a good mix.

 

Now back in the day, I used to use my sub with my K1000's for gaming and watching movies.  That was a lot of fun. 

 

-Ed

Same here. The HGS-15 kicks butt for HT but I've had little luck in integrating it to Martin Logans for music. It does well (adjusted w/dbm & crossover done in the processor) until the bass juice is called for, then that 15" takes the room over and ruins the listening. I don't have treatments so that hurts but I believe it would still eat the room (26x28). If I were in the market to set up a music only rig, I'd get nothing bigger than a 8 in. complement. The M-L subs use three 8 inch drivers. I'd have sold the V and gotten a M-L sub but this site has changed the way I like to listen to music now. Besides, the V still scares the begeesus out of you with HT.

Of course this is IMO.