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General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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Worthless - hardly, Less than Optimal - clearly

Posted by Edp on April 14, 2017 at 14:39:46:
Worthless is too strong of word, less than optimal seems more true to the reality.

Anybody whos had a speaker like a Spice tc50 or even the little NHT zero, and simply added a subwoofer, rarely would say the result was worthless.

One of the earliest and still to this day a fine implementation of sub/mains was the JBL L212. The whole system did not "filter the mains", it simply used the sealed alignment with a fairly amazing 8 inch driver that resulted in a F3 of 70 hz. There was no electrical filtering or subsonic filter to that unit and it still moved to signals below 70hz.

Would it have been even more optimal with filter, sure, but was it "required or worthless", nope.

I know where you are going with the statement "worthless", but that is too black/white based upon decades of usage and overall performance gains in adding a subwoofer to bass shy main speakers.

One of the concerns many have is "the filter of the mains", means there is another set of components that the signal goes through, and some of the worst "filter of mains" is simply a big ol cheap Electrolytic cap that all of the frequencies go through and you get to hear that for every note, not just bass range. In that case , people are better off with "unfiltered mains".