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Three or four "scattered subwoofers" all located on the floor = sonic disaster

"I really don't understand why you keep coming back to the floor to ceiling mode as if that's some unique weakness of a multisub system that isn't vertically scattered. It is every bit as much a weakness of a single sub system. All the bass coming from near the floor = all the bass coming from near the floor, no matter how many cones are reproducing it."

RG responds:
With scattered multiple subwoofers all located with drivers near the floor, you will have:

(1) Less than full excitation of some side-wall-to-side wall room modes

(2) Less than full excitation of some front-wall-to-rear-wall room modes

(3) Full excitation of the first-order axial floor to ceiling room mode (as every subwoofer on the floor fully excites that room mode) causing a NASTY bass peak in the 69 to 73Hz. range (eight-foot ceiling).

One really loud bass peak in the 69-73Hz. range is much more likely to be audible and annoying than the three or four bass peaks that you would typically get when using one corner subwoofer (causing maximum excitement of all room modes), as one alternative.

If the three or four bass peaks from one corner subwoofer are not stacked, or at adjacent frequencies (from square or near square rooms), they will be somewhat smoothed by our ear's one-third octave smoothing ability.

Any subwoofer located to the side or rear of a listener deteriorates the stereo two-channel image from the front of the room.
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Think about the best speakers you have ever heard in your life.

Most likely they were large very expensive full-range speakers.

No separate subwoofer(s) were needed.

They sounded great with ALL the bass coming from the left front and right front speakers -- similar to having left-front and right-front stereo subwoofers (which you seem to think is such a bad idea!)

The goal with subwoofers is to replicated the sound quality of expensive full range speakers by using relatively inexpensive main speakers plus one or two subwoofers to extend their bass frequency response.

Changes from adding a third or forth subwoofer could benefit or deteriorate the bass quality at any one listening seat and the changes would vary from room to room.
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Richard BassNut Greene
Subjective Audiophile 2007

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