Home » Audio » Speaker » Going without a subwoofer.... even with smaller drivers?(what to expect regarding bass output versus total # of small woofers)
selahaudio Messages: 56 Registered: September 2009
Baron
There really are very few 5" woofers that I would even consider running without a sub in an array and they are much more expensive than the SB Acoustics woofer. The option would be to add DSP equalization and if you have enough surface area the 5's might be acceptable. To get the extension you need it probably will take a 7". If you want a dual line of woofers flanking the tweeters the Neo3 isn't going to work well with 5"-7" drivers.
Also, in-room bass extension numbers can be very misleading. Most measurements you see don't have enough resolution in the bottom octave and will tend to heavily overstate the extension. A prime example is a system I had measured nearfield -3db@60hz and the owner's DSP showed an in-room of -3db around 30hz! Listening without a sub it was clearly audible that the lower octave fundamentals were not very strong.