Should I get a subwoofer for my wife???

[skenwrick]

Here's the problem

I originally bought a mid range separates system that included beautiful b&W floorstanding speakers. But my wife hated the rosewood veneer finish and when we moved the living room was decorated in a modern style and I wasn't allowed to include these speakers because 'they didn't match'.

So I bought Vienna accoustics Haydn bookshelf speakers which were also pretty great. However she still moaned that they were too big to mount on the walls so they are sat on top of the bookshelf (too high, too close, aaaaargh!).

Anyway, she decided that she wanted music in our little inglenook room but she said that she wanted only mini speakers. I told her that it woudn't work but of course she wouldn't listen, she just wanted nice 'tiny' black speakers mounted in the corners.

So I relented and bought Mission M30 minis which I think sound pretty good. Its quite nice to have a contrast between the warm, deep Hadyn's and the punchy responsive M30's in the tiny room - it gives me a bit of variety.

But of course she's been spoilt without knowing it, and is now complaining that the M30s are 'tinny' (aaaaaargh again!).

Should I consider buying a subwoofer to provide more base and if so what would I need to drive these. My amp is an Arcam delta 290 (75W per channel). Could this amp drive both the subwoofer and the M30s together?

Or should I just get a divorce?

Thanks in advance
Sean

[JonHarrison]

Sean,

Which would be cheaper !

Jon

[RobWells]

Personally I'd be looking for something to remove the huge thumbprint from my head

As for the question I'd stick a 12" sub in the corner. Your mains are good to 68Hz acording to mission and being ported will drop at 24dB/oct - Ideal for a plate amps xo. I know you said buy a sub but this is diyaudio.com. I'd buy a 12" peerless xls driver, a bk electronics plate amp and a bit of mdf..... If buying I'd go sealed and make sure you've got a 24dB lowpass on it and an adjustable xo point. REL 'Q' series springs to mind.

The divorce sounds good too though!

Rob.

[Drew Eckhardt]

A 4" mid-bass driver isn't going to do a decent job getting down to where the sub-woofer can take over and ported speakers don't seem to integrate well unless you cross them over an octave above their F3 point which would be a bit high at 136Hz.

Swap the mini-speakers for decent (sealed 6"+ mid-bass with rigid MDF enclosures) in-wall units plus a sub for the last two octaves.

Q=.707, F3=80Hz will combine with a 2nd order butterworth at the same frequency to provide an LR4 high-pass response; pair with an LR4 electrical low-pass filter on the sub-woofer.

[rpapps]

Sounds like a good trade to me.
If you drive a hard bargain, you might be able to get two.
Just make sure there is a no return clause in the contract.
Cheers
Rob

[Stocker]

You guys are terrible. Tell her she's got a choice between good sound and small drivers. Explain that there is not an easy way to get midbass from a small driver, so she needs bigger speakers or she will get large amounts of localization of the subwoofer or else a big gaping hole in the midbass frequencies.

Or you could get a set of the CSS FR-125S drivers or the smaller-yet Aurasound NS3-something or other which are dirt cheap and see how she likes the tones they put out.