[Tangram]

As my M3s continue to break in (200 hours and counting), their bass (quality and quantity) continue to impress in my 13’X20’ room. I have two subs that I paired with other speakers but CURRENTLY feel no need to use them with the Spatials. I haven’t even been tempted.

My question is to M3 owners who have lived with their speakers for a while: Despite loving the bass at first, did you ultimately add subs to get the sound you were after? If yes, what is your room size and how easy was it to integrate the subs? What crossover point works best for you? Are you running your Spatials full range with the subs?

The reason for my question is that I am considering selling the subs but I don’t want to find that a year later, I wish I had them to use with the Spatials. This happened to me once before with other speakers.

[Audiosaurusrex]

16x18 room with acoustic treatments. I’ve had the M3’s for almost 2 years presently being driven with an Octave V70 Class A. No need or desire for subs whatsoever. I almost think it would muddy the beautiful bass that these speakers deliver. I came from Vandersteen 2ces with bone crushing bass. I don’t miss them.

[djray]

I have a 16' x 16' room and use AudioKinesis SWARM subs (4) with my M3s.  The purpose of the SWARM is to get cleaner bass, not more bass.  I talked about sub placement with Duke at AudioKinesis and he provide explicit instructions: face each sub within five inches from a wall in an asymetrical pattern with one sub in a corner, connect to the amp and enjoy the music. I did and I am.

DJRay

[dallaire1]

I have the M3's, room measures 17X15X8 it is an asymmetrical room as you can see in my avatar.  I prefer subs with them as I can get down to 38hz in room. I have the crossover set at 40hz on my NAD M33. I have purchased two twin stacks of Danny's subs, not built yet but soon after summer comes to a close. I feel a sub is needed just to get that last all important  bit of low end extension (IMHO) I prefer a complete full range sound top to bottom. The speakers themselves are simply amazing to me, I sit every day for hours with ZERO listening fatigue ! I am done with speakers, DONE. I have implemented the DSP on my unit to smooth things under 200hz, then tilted bass back upwards to obtain a what I consider a nice psychoacoustic tilt downward as frequency increases. I didn't give Dirac-Live much notice until really playing with it, Dirac does wonders for bass thickness and bloat due to room pileups at those frequencies. I think Clayton nailed this on the M3 ! linear, not flat.

Props to Spatial Audio ! 

[abomwell]

I have the M3's, room measures 17X15X8 it is an asymmetrical room as you can see in my avatar.  I prefer subs with them as I can get down to 38hz in room. I have the crossover set at 40hz on my NAD M33. I have purchased two twin stacks of Danny's subs, not built yet but soon after summer comes to a close. I feel a sub is needed just to get that last all important  bit of low end extension (IMHO) I prefer a complete full range sound top to bottom. The speakers themselves are simply amazing to me, I sit every day for hours with ZERO listening fatigue ! I am done with speakers, DONE. I have implemented the DSP on my unit to smooth things under 200hz, then tilted bass back upwards to obtain a what I consider a nice psychoacoustic tilt downward as frequency increases. I didn't give Dirac-Live much notice until really playing with it, Dirac does wonders for bass thickness and bloat due to room pileups at those frequencies. I think Clayton nailed this on the M3 ! linear, not flat.

Props to Spatial Audio !  :

Do you use the class D amps in the NAD M33 or the preamp-out to another amp?

[loki7177]

I have had my M3 Sapphires for 18 months now.  I have a Rythmik sub that I used to use with my Harbeths and Maggies but I have found no need to use them now.  My room is 14'x14'x8'.

[Mr. Big]

I tried a pair of subs and I did not like how they changed the sound of the my M3's Sapphires, without subs these speakers in-room give you has much bottom end one will ever need on 99% of recordings, and depending on room accoutics more like more bass than one would ever need. Most music bottom end just does not go that extremely low.

[Tyson]

If it turns out that you do want subs for the M3, then you should get subs that are open baffle too.  That way the radiation pattern and room interaction match between the M3's and the subs.

The only subs I know of that are capable of keeping up with Clayton's designs are the Servo OB subs that GR Research offers. 

[dallaire1]

I use my NAD to do it all. I think what the final touches that Bruno put into the class D design on NAD's behalf made a believer out of me. I know it's not for everyone by no means.

[dallaire1]

I have also heard that even the open baffle subs can perhaps kill some of the clarity and definition in the lower registers. I think the key would be to not overdue the volume on the subs, which I am guilty of at times ! For me I'm hoping to let Dirac Live adjust phase/delay issues below the Schroeder frequency of 200 HZ and go from there, after I move the subwoofers around in my room 397 times of course. I'm hoping for a seamless integration with time and lots of patience. I know Danny's subs are Rock solid just a matter of getting everything to play nice with one another. Pitched it to Danny, he said set it up see how it sounds ??

[Tyson]

I've run sealed subs and I've also run servo OB subs.  Trust me, the servo OB subs are far, far, far better than sealed subs when you run OB mains.

Now, whether or not you want subs at all with the M3's is a separate question.  The M3's might be all you need.  If so, then great, no need for the extra expense of subs.  But if you DO decide you want more bass, skip the box subs and go straight to the servo OB subs.

[jjss49]

i feel no need to run subs with my m3s's

[geerock]

When I was looking for subs to integrate with my Maggie 1.7i's a while back I was going nuts trying to find something that didn't lag behind the very fast ribbon speakers.  I was trying 2k 3k 4k dollars subs with no luck.  They all just muddled the bass.  Finally I was at a local audio shop and an old timer who was a salesman there said go to a sealed sub with nothing larger than a 10" driver.  Martin Logan of course sells very fast electro stats and they had a sealed sub with ARC room correction and it sold for around $600 bucks.  Took it home and knew immediately that was the one.  Perfect match and integration with the Maggie bass.  When I got my X5's I was happy with the natural bass but every now and then some recordings just needed a tiny bit of help so I yanked out the ML sub.  And it works wonderfully.  Sometimes you don't need to spend thousands you just need to hear what works.

[Tangram]

Thanks everyone for your replies. In reviewing the responses, subs/no subs is evenly split. Since I already own the subs I will live with the Spatials a bit longer to see whether or not, once the honeymoon is over, I still feel the need for more bass heft.

[dallaire1]

Danny just put out a nice video on YouTube about his open baffle sub integration.

[Mr. Big]

No real need for subs with my M3's tried them (2) and the music always sounded better letting the speakers go and do what they do, On top of that most music folks listen to have bottom end no more than 40Hz and if you heard a tone at 40 Hz pure, you think it was playing at 20Hz. Now Fat & Heavy bass is another story that many hear daily in many boxed speaker systems and while it does sound impressive, but it is not right when compared to Electrostatics and Open Baffle speakers that give you balance and definition on what bottom end is on the recording and not speaker room induced bottom end on almost every recording. 

[zybar]

16x18 room with acoustic treatments. I’ve had the M3’s for almost 2 years presently being driven with an Octave V70 Class A. No need or desire for subs whatsoever. I almost think it would muddy the beautiful bass that these speakers deliver. I came from Vandersteen 2ces with bone crushing bass. I don’t miss them.

I had Vandy 5A's with very good self-powered subs built into the speaker before I went with the M3 Turbo S speakers (previous generation of Clayton's).

I never felt the need to add subs or that I lost anything...in fact, I feel like the bass improved in many of the ways already stated.

George

[Tangram]

I got around to integrating the subs and M3s. It wasn’t that the resulting sound was offensive; it was just that the subs didn’t do much! The M3s are true full range speakers with really low frequency SPL ability.

Subs have been incorporated into my home theater. Yesterday’s “rainy day” listening session was the best yet!

[Mr. Big]

I own 3 subs and I can say the M3's Sapphires did not need them, in fact, heard the sound, so they are now in my video system. There is not much real extreme low end in must music recorded. a 40Hz note when clean is so impactful and sounds much deeper than you would think. If a speaker can go into the low 30's then you really go a good bottom-end and this does not account for your room response which could be in the 28Hz.

[jjss49]

i agree w the above posts, don't need subs with my m3 s's - with proper placement they play essentially full range for me