Well, this is long-overdue, but I wanted to post my experience with the Audiokinesis Swarm sub system. Just over a year ago, Duke sent me a set of the first-generation Swarm subs. They arrived in a burly custom-made wood crate with foam blocks neatly separating the speakers and keeping everything in great shape despite having been trucked from coast-to-coast. A few days later the plate amplifier arrived, and I spent a few weeks playing with alternative locations within my room.
My setup: I'm a planar guy (of limited means) so I have a pair of Magneplanar 1.6qr speakers. These have been heavily modified, and are now bi-amped, with a pair of 120wpc monoblock tube amps on the treble panels and a lusty 600wpc Innersound ESL solid state amp on the bass panels. Incidently, Duke is the one who convinced me of the merits of the Innersound amps, and I've been very happy with its performance. The Maggies also have Mye stands, which were a significant upgrade too. BTW, my primary source is vinyl (VPI Classic w. Rhea phono stage) and I also use a Modwright Transporter to play FLAC high rez downloads. Preamp is a First Sound Transcendence tube line stage.
But even though my sound is wonderful, I'd been missing the lower registers, especially in large orchestral works that I favor. The bass I had was good quality, and I had been somewhat disappointed with various attempts to find a good sub match. I tried a Vandersteen 2Wq sub, but hated the sound of caps inserted in the signal path to obtain the first-order high pass filter. And I won't go into what happened with the Mirage subs, or the REL subs that I tried. Seamless matching of subs and Maggies was an illusory goal in my room.
Anyway, I was concerned about optimal placement of the Swarm, and Duke somewhat casually suggested that I simply "scatter them around" in my room. The room itself is about 15' x 26' with 8' ceilings. Speakers are on the long wall, about 4' from the front wall and about 6' from either side of the primary listening chair. Behind the listener, the back wall has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, well stuffed with diffusers, er, books.
So I randomly distributed the 4 subs, hooked them up with Horizon silver-plated copper cables, and began playing. First off, Cat Stevens "Tea for the Tillerman" which has some extremely natural-sounding recorded string bass. Whoa! Gotta turn down the bass! I dramatically cut down the boost on the bass amp, and spent a while searching out other strong bass tracks (St Saens Organ Symphony #3 anyone?). I played some pink noise and adjusted the various amps until I had a flat frequency response across most of the audio spectrum, as measured with a Behringer DEQ2496. During this stage, I tried a bunch of radical repositioning of the bass modules, without seeing huge differences in room response. So I guess all the theory about distributed bass has some merit, huh?
This all took a couple of weeks or so. When I finally got things sorted out and started listening seriously, my first impression was... "Where's the sub?" Like it wasn't even there. Until I unplugged it and suddenly the whole foundation of the music lost its drive. Even on Beethoven piano sonatas, having the Swarm in place just makes the whole illusion of space and time much more "real." The Swarm is a fantastic match with my Maggies and I couldn't be happier.
This isn't about subterranean bombastic bass, more about the natural sound of real music. Not a home theatre sub, by any means. But it sure adds a lot of dynamicism to my Maggies!
Job well done, Duke! And thanks for the terrific support and advice over the years!
By the way, the Rodrigo y Gabriela CD you sent me has become one of my mainstays. Fun! And it really does showcase what the Swarm adds to my system too! Thanks!!
