How do these two approaches compare?

For HT, I would build a 5.0 setup to maintain stereo bass ... no summed woofers. This would give you the best CD/SACD stereo sound. Many DVDs sound much better with the rear speakers set very low SPL or off. Very few rooms are large enough for great 5.1 or 7.1 with normal furniture.

I should think this is overkill unless you are planning on simulating cannonfire, or nuclear explosions.

In my 16 x 12 foot room two 12's crossing at 165hz are more than adequate for any music I choose to listen to. I don't try to simulate gun fire. If I want that I go out my my cabin and fire my .357.

marlboro

The JAES papers I've read match my experience: a good listener can locate the bass speaker down to 40-50Hz, and definitely at 60Hz. The literature recommendation is to maintain stero bass to at least 50Hz. When I put a >30Hz woofer on the floor next to a line array, the sound stage image physically drops, and this is why I use bass line arrays with line array speakers. I never use subwoofers, and I am happy with close-to-flat 30Hz room boosted bass. Perfecting 80-1,500Hz human voice is my main goal.

You will need to listen and compare line array bass to on-the-floor bass. The biggest waste of time and money is to do it wrong then do-it-over. There are lower cost good sounding 12" woofers.

1) Will the array of 3" fullrangers carry all the frequencies above 250hz, or will they be crossed to a tweeter array? Roger Russell of McIntosh Labs fame has proved an equalized full-range array can work, but there's still a question about whether it's as good as the more common practice of using an array of small to mid-size woofers with a separate array of ribbon, planar or dome tweeters. The consensus around the web is that the latter approach is better. See the link to Russell's web page below.

2) Crossing over to side firing woofers at 250hz raises some concerns about the use of side-firing versus front-firing woofers and about the appropraite crossover frequency. I'm out of my element here and just repeating what I have read, so does somebody else have some comments about this?

• Roger Russell's Web Page

Does'nt the LT equalization help to get the desired -3db frequency and Q? With 6 (or maybe 8) woofers per side I have lots of power handling and excursion capability.

Thanks,
Goldy