[SteveFord]

I've been thinking a little bit which is always a bad thing.
I'm about to finish up some motorcycle projects (too many bikes, not enough money) and then turn my attention to stereo stuff.

After a brief stint with 20.7s the 3.7s sound too thin if that makes any sense.
The 20.7s are too large for my living room.

Who here is running 3.7s with dual subs?
I'm thinking two passive SVS cylinderical subs with Dayton plate amps with adjustments o'plenty.

[NIGHTFALL1970]

Steve,
I use two Rythmik subs with my 1.7s.  I highly recommend using two subs.  Much better than one.

[JLM]

3 or 4 subs are better yet to confront in-room peaks and dips.  If using two make sure they are in opposite ends of the room.

[ajzepp]

I've been running a pair of Power Sound Audio (Tom Vodhanel's company...one of the guys who founded SVS) sealed 1500 subs with the 3.6s for a few years. I agree that two are better than one.

[Emsquare]

One of my intended upgrades. I have a friend who bought a pair of Vandersteen 2WQ's, I think they are, to use with his Magnepan IIIa's and that is rather impressive. It just works. They have a rather unusual line level crossover configuration that seems to be a questionable choice but I can't argue with how it sounds. They unify just beautifully with his 3 series.

[grsimmon]

3 or 4 subs are better yet to confront in-room peaks and dips.  If using two make sure they are in opposite ends of the room.

Can I ask a litte bit about this?   I'd like to add a small second sub to my system,  but it's not possible for me to place on the other side of the room.  Will it cause more problems than it's worth,  if I add a second one but it's in close proximity to the first?

[dbeau]

What is 'the other side of the room'?  Front to Back or Side to Side?
Thanks

[artur9]

Will it cause more problems than it's worth,  if I add a second one but it's in close proximity to the first?

Yes, IIUC.  Two subs that are close interfere with one another.  Unless you stack them, in which case they couple together acoustically and play louder.

The choices seem to be:  get more subs to so as to go louder then stack them.  Get more subs to get smoother then place them in different locations around the room, or get a lot more subs and do both.

The Audio Kinesis Swarm's website can probably explain it better.

[SteveFord]

Here's what I'm thinking, either in the corners behind the speakers or flanking them on the outside.
The way the room is set up  I'm thinking the big water heater type subs would work best and I'll go with passive so I'll have some flexibility with the amp(s).

[Hoshi]

Hi Steve,

I’ve been running big tubes with my Maggies like you and have been for the last two years.  I got decent bass for certain genres of music but needed to take my system to the next level of enjoyment and pretty much just needed more bass for classic rock which I listen to about a third of the time.    I’ve taken excerpts below from something I posted on another audio form a while back.

I'm running a pair of F15HP Rythmik sealed subs with my MG3.7i's. Prior to the Rythmik's, I enjoyed a single REL Stadium III for 17 years mated with various Maggie's. According to Rythmik, 30% of all their sales are to Magnepan owners.

Moving into a larger listening room (21'x25') I felt that I needed another Stadium or needed to find a replacement. After months of trying to find a second Stadium, I considering an open baffle approach or sealed boxes, I went with the ladder. I contemplated the time and effort to construct and finish the open baffles as well as investment cost. My wood working skills are fairly adequate but what scared me was the finishing process. MDF trust me, is a challenge to get it to look right especially in a nice listening room. I consider Captain Nemo's kits but those would still need finishing.

I think what actually got me to try the finished Rythmik product was when talking to GR Research about their OB baffle product, I mentioned that I has a REL Stadium. GR made the comment to possibly keep it and run it in conjunction with the open baffles. This is something I definitely did not want to consider. I could not imagine having dual OB subs in my listening along with the REL. Just to put things in perspective, I have Rythmik's sitting behind my 3.7's just to have them out of sight. Not that they are bad looking, in fact the finished products has exceptional build quality in my opinion but let's face it, I don't believe any of us would want to look at a sub if we didn't have to.

Owning Magnepan's for better the a dozen or so years, I've always enjoyed what they brought to the party. Great soundstage, strong imaging, and spooky transparency. The one area they always lacked was a nice lower mid-base and bottom end. I've considered a pair of DWMs, tried the linage set-up, tried various speaker cables, different amps and even thought about a pair of 20.7's. I can honestly say that the Rythmik's have been the perfect complement to my MG 3.7i's.

I've found that these subs take about 150 hours to settle in. I'm not saying that don't sound decent right out of the box but they do change until they get so called broken-in. To give you an example on what I'm talking about is there are numerous tiny adjustment clicks similar to the REL for each settings and adjustments on the plate amp. Initially I had the dampening setting between "low" and "mid" for the first month or so but ended up using the "high" setting once the subs were run in. All the setting on the plate amp can be rather daunting and confusing. I will say the living with the REL for over a decade helped me understand all the settings. Once you get a full understanding on what all these controls and setting can do, it can be rather fun in getting things dialed in properly. I haven't even started playing around with the parametric EQ yet and have this process turned off.

Anyone contemplating on to go with twelves or fifteens, if your room can handle the larger boxes, go with the fifteens, they are not much more expensive. You also get a more powerful amp plate. You can always turn down the amp volume. In my room I have the gain at roughly 2'clock or at 65% output. Just my two cents here but I know the paper GR Research cone is only available in 12 inches. From where I have my subs crossed over, the paper cone would never have made a difference. I think for those mating them with a smaller two-way stand mounted speaker, the paper cone driver would make sense.

I listen primarily to jazz and classic rock. Since getting the Rythmik's it's hard to imagine how much low end energy I've been missing all these years. Even in a smaller listening room with my REL Stadium, I never got the low end impact I'm currently enjoying. Maggie's in my opinion played classic rock decently as you were able to play them loud and with music that did not rely on deep bass to sound good. Stuff like Pink Floyd, Supertramp, The Cars, and Coldplay, were not artist you played to impress your friends. They sounded good but not something my Magnepan's did well at. I can confidently say that this is not the case with the right sub. Regarding jazz recordings, the deep notes present on Ray Brown, Art Pepper, Sammy Nestico and the likes are just incredible. Those low notes were always there and discernable but the Maggie's could not reproduce those bass notes as intended by these artist in my opinion.

If you haven't decided on a sub yet, I hope my feedback will help you in your decision. Time for me to get back to listen and finding my next DAC.

Hoshi

[johnto]

Attended the Maggie 30.7 showing in MA last night and according to Wendell dipole subs are the best match with Maggie's.
I have posted my thoughts on the 30.7 over on the asylum.

[Tyson]

Servo OB subs are even better than regular OB subs.

[schugh]

I use a couple of older REL R218s with my 3.7i.
They are fast and I find work really good with the maggies.

[AvsFan]

I've been running a pair of Power Sound Audio (Tom Vodhanel's company...one of the guys who founded SVS) sealed 1500 subs with the 3.6s for a few years. I agree that two are better than one.

Are they pretty musical and fast? I have been eyeballing his subs for awhile now.

[Tyson]

I've been in the game a long time.  Trust me, for planars and OB speakers, this is what you want:

[AvsFan]

I've been in the game a long time.  Trust me, for planars and OB speakers, this is what you want:

I don't know what that is.

[Tyson]

That's a servo controlled OB Subwoofer that GR Research here on AC makes/sells.  IME, it's really important for the wave pattern of the sub to match the wave pattern of the main speaker.  For an OB speaker, you really need OB bass.  That way your main speakers are creating a figure 8 radiation pattern and your subs are too. 

If you go with a boxed sub, then you have a mismatch.  Your main speakers are radiating a figure 8 because they are OB, but the box sub radiates sound like a pulsing sphere.  And you'll have a lot more difficulty getting them to integrate than you would with a quality OB sub. 

[ajzepp]

Are they pretty musical and fast? I have been eyeballing his subs for awhile now.

  Sorry, just now saw this. IMO, they blend quite well once you find the right settings. I know it drives Tom nuts because in the earlier days of SVS it used to be a known criticism that his subs weren't good for music...but to my ears, they sound very nice with my Maggies. And as you likely already know, blending subwoofers in with Maggies is not an easy task. I have his sealed versions, though, and IMO sealed subs tend to play nicer with Maggies. Depending on room size, I also have an RSL Speedwoofer 10, which won Audioholics product of the year a while back. It's very clean and also blends quite well with the Maggies. Much less expensive, as well.

[WGH]

The open baffle subs are terrific if you have the room but if you don't then the REL sub is another viable choice. I first heard a REL Gibraltar G2 in 2013 and it was paired with Maggie 3.7's, the integration was flawless and I wanted one ever since. The G2 has been discontinued and it took me 6 years to find one but it is just as excellent as I remember. The remote control makes it easy to integrate, my Salk speakers go down to 34 Hz so I have the crossover set between 27 - 30 Hz depending on the recording, the crossover and volume is adjustable in 1 dB increments as shown on the display below the cone. And the bass goes real low, -6 dB at 18 Hz. The G2's 450 watt amp has a fast rise time of 4 milliseconds so it can easily keep up with the Seas drivers and RAAL tweeters. Very highly recommended.

The big brother REL Gibraltar G1 subs are almost always available used, two of them would be killer. The G1 has a 600 watt class AB amp and goes even lower than the G2.

Here is my G2, it is a powerful, nimble beast



Carbon fiber woofer

[WGH]

The Absolute Sound 2019 Editors’ Choice Awards: Subwoofers - REL subs have multiple listings including the Gibraltar G1 MkII
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2019-editors-choice-awards-subwoofers/?mc_cid=89aeb2460a&mc_eid=617444c021

I have never seen a G1 MkII show up used, a new pair would cost $11,000.

How big is your room? A single used G1 for $2,250 my be all you need. You may think that is expensive until you hear one. Actually the Gibraltar subs are never heard, your speakers sound as if they effortlessly play lower. Gibraltar subs are different, they are not a traditional subwoofer, they are technically a sub-bass system designed to augment the performance of a full range speaker in order to provide linear response to 15Hz (G1).