What is missing from many 2 channel systems.

What's up everyone? This will be long but might be worth your time to read.

So lets all assume that your 2 channel system is properly placed. Your speakers whatever they are are in the ideal position for creating that imagining we all crave. You spend countless hours getting the tilt , toe and distance correct and when you sit down and listen , they create that wall of sound that we all strive to have.

Some people might have a dedicated room that is properly treated and excellent dimensions for a musical experience.

We all chase how we can improve our systems and start looking at better amps, maybe better speakers, in here most will chase wire and go down a deep rabbit hole trying to figure out what combination of cables makes the system sound it's best. As finding all those pieces to work correctly , I think most always miss the most important piece and never even consider it due to the fact they feel their speakers should be able to do what they are rated to do.

The missing piece in most 2 channel systems that most don't consider is a subwoofer or a pair of them. The reason as mentioned above is the ability of the speakers and no consideration that the room is what dictates the bass.

If you study room acoustics you will quickly learn that just about all of the time where your left and right speakers get placed for ideal placement for your seating, they usually have trouble recreating signals properly from around 200hz and down. This is in no way a fault of whatever speakers you own, it's the room and how those frequencies interact in that space.

So what is one to do? You add a single or pair of subwoofers to the system and remove the lower octaves away from the main channel speakers. First off placement is key for a subwoofer. I suggest looking up Subwoofer crawls . Brief you place a subwoofer in your seating location and then crawl around the room running bass sweeps to see where all the bass frequencies sound the most even. If you can find 2 places where they sound the best , you can place 2 subs one in each location. If you only have 1 seat you don't need 2 subwoofers. 2 subs don't get added to a room for more bass, you get more even bass.

Then which goes against what we all know and love is getting rid of a 2 channel only preamp or receiver for a surround model with tools or high quality. Don't freak out just read on. With a surround processor you now have tools most if not all 2 channel preamps or receiver don't have, room correction or crossover points with sub out's. You now can set your main 6 foot towers to small and start to blend them into a subwoofer and create actual bass that will be smooth and detailed.

Decades ago REL released 2 channel first subwoofers. Their engineers created a sub bass system that at that time realized that most speakers can't even play down to 20hz anyway and do a poor job if they did. Having a subwoofer added to a 2 channel system or a surround system that is also used for music is ideal. They also figured out that tracking the main channel's amp output VIA speaker level was a good way to match the dynamic range of the signal as not all amps track dynamics correctly. This is true and flawed all in one breath. The idea is correct but what is missed here is the conversions. When you take a already converted signal from line level to speaker level then back to line level then back to speaker level you lose some detail and add noise. So from what I have learned over the years is this method isn't the best.

I'm not picking on REL they make some of my all time favorite Subwoofers. What I am doing is pointing out the benefits of having tools in your preamp. The more tools you have to integrate a system into a room the better you can make it without spending hundreds and thousands of dollars chasing details you may already have. I think having a dedicated subwoofer or pair mated with a surround preamp or receiver is way more beneficial to a 2 channel system then buying better cables , speakers or amps. We can assume we already have the ideal source like a CD player , Turntable or music streamer or some kind so I wanted to focus on the room and bass placement and how that effects your overall experience more so then a new power cable, higher end speaker wires or higher current amp your lusting after.