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Cees Alons · 03-10-2002, 02:14 PM

Do I really need a Subwoofer?

No, you don't need anything. But then if you don't have anything you won't see or hear much when seated in your HT.

Well, if you're on a budget, or if you need some more time to decide better, you can postpone the subwoofer: that way you can start your HT-experience now, and you will be happily surprised the day you get one!

Why have a sub?
The human ear can hear frequencies starting as low as 20Hz (lower frequencies can hardly be heard - but you can feel them in your chest!). And those terribly low frequencies add tremendously to the drama of the soundstage. No explosion, or earth-quake without them. And they add a foreboding tension to any scene. So they are heavily used in modern films.

On DVD they can be recorded, and the special channel containing them is called the effect-channel, or more accurately: the Low Frequencies Effects (LFE-) channel. It's the "1" in "5.1" (or in "7.1"). Receivers and decoders have an output that is meant to be fed to a special low frequency speaker the (generally having it's own amplifier: active) subwoofer.

Then some guys remembered an older technique. Because you cannot hear where low frequencies exactly come from, you don't have to produce them exactly at the spot of the different audio channels. They used that in older stereo equipment, so they could have less expensive L- and R-speakers, and have all lower frequencies of both channels sent to one subwoofer (located under the couch, or so)!

That's brilliant: now we already have the LFE-sub, we can use it to reproduce the very low frequencies of the other channels as well! No need to buy five extremely expensive speakers (ha, no, not extremely)! All decoders and receivers now have something added called bass-management: you can define any channel you want (often all of them) as small (meaning: no frequencies lower than approx. 80-100Hz), and the decoder (receiver) will send it's bass to the LFE-channel!

So now you know what happens if you add a sub later: you will acquire the possibility to hear the LFE-channel AND you will severely improve your total frequency range. If you were on a budget in the first place, your other channels won't be too good at very low freqs, isn't it? Well, they don't have to be.

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03-10-2002, 02:14 PM
Cees Alons *Cees Alons* Administrator Location: Amsterdam, Holland Join Date: Aug 1997 Local Time: 11:43 PM Local Date: 07-04-2008 Posts: 17,777	Do I really need a Subwoofer? No, you don't need anything. But then if you don't have anything you won't see or hear much when seated in your HT. Well, if you're on a budget, or if you need some more time to decide better, you can postpone the subwoofer: that way you can start your HT-experience now, and you will be happily surprised the day you get one! Why have a sub? The human ear can hear frequencies starting as low as 20Hz (lower frequencies can hardly be heard - but you can feel them in your chest!). And those terribly low frequencies add tremendously to the drama of the soundstage. No explosion, or earth-quake without them. And they add a foreboding tension to any scene. So they are heavily used in modern films. On DVD they can be recorded, and the special channel containing them is called the effect-channel, or more accurately: the Low Frequencies Effects (LFE-) channel. It's the "1" in "5.1" (or in "7.1"). Receivers and decoders have an output that is meant to be fed to a special low frequency speaker the (generally having it's own amplifier: active) subwoofer. Then some guys remembered an older technique. Because you cannot hear where low frequencies exactly come from, you don't have to produce them exactly at the spot of the different audio channels. They used that in older stereo equipment, so they could have less expensive L- and R-speakers, and have all lower frequencies of both channels sent to one subwoofer (located under the couch, or so)! That's brilliant: now we already have the LFE-sub, we can use it to reproduce the very low frequencies of the other channels as well! No need to buy five extremely expensive speakers (ha, no, not extremely)! All decoders and receivers now have something added called bass-management: you can define any channel you want (often all of them) as small (meaning: no frequencies lower than approx. 80-100Hz), and the decoder (receiver) will send it's bass to the LFE-channel! So now you know what happens if you add a sub later: you will acquire the possibility to hear the LFE-channel AND you will severely improve your total frequency range. If you were on a budget in the first place, your other channels won't be too good at very low freqs, isn't it? Well, they don't have to be.