On Sat, 11 Dec 2010 23:29:34 -0800, "DGDevin"
wrote:

"Smarty" wrote in message ...


I entirely agree. I have owned several (Velodyne, Hsu Research, Carver,
Dahlquist) and installed many others in some extremely high end systems.
They add a profoundly better and more realistic foundation to many types
of music and theater / video performance.

As 'Home Guy' states, true subwoofers installed and adjusted properly are
a joy to hear, but misused, misadjusted, or misnamed speakers pretending
to be subwoofers but are actually not suitable for subsonic frequencies
give true subwoofers an undeserved bad name.

I still have a Triphonic 3a system made in France several decades ago
(although it's in storage at the moment). It has three 12" woofers (with
accelerometers on the cones) driven by a built-in power amp. There is an
analog computer in effect that compares the motion of the cones to the input
single and corrects for errors, Philips used the same technology in their
Motional Feedback speaker systems. The satellites also had ribbon tweeters
(Celestion?) and the overall effect was of effortless, accurate sound
reproduction. So when somebody tells me subwoofers are inherently lo-fi,
well....

Of course many of the so-called subwoofers sold today are rubbish, meant
only to lay a thick, furry layer of *thump* over everything. Sadly, car
audio and home theatre have done a lot of damage to the whole concept of
hi-fi. But that doesn't mean that subwoofers as a species are a bad idea,
they just have to be properly executed.

Generically referred to as "kickers" - after a brand name unit of the
same name (or "punchers")