bentoronto said:
I guess my belief is that if there were two woofers in a room and your head was more or less steady in one location, you couldn't answer which was playing an 80 Hz note even if you knew they sounded different (which they probably would).
You believe otherwise?
I'd for the most part agree with that statement. However there are things that can make subwoofers playing at or below that range easier to localize. It could be harmonic distortion, mechanical noise at higher excursions, or port noise if it's a ported box. I once had a subwoofer using a fairly inexpensive driver and if I pushed the crossover frequency above 120hz the harmonic distortion became strong enough for me to locate the subwoofer. I think that if you are going to go with a single subwoofer in your room there are are several things you could do to make it less easy to localize;
-Keep the crossover frequency as low as your mains will handle
-Use a driver with low harmonic distortion
-Keep the subwoofer between your mains or as close to them as possible.
-Use an adequately sized port to avoid port noise
-Put your subwoofer behind a couch, a stuffed chair, or some other objcect that will absorb some of the higher frequency harmonics
-If you have carpet in your room and the driver is suited to it, build a downfiring subwoofer.
-Use a bandpass enclosure, it will actually filter out some of the mechanical noises and harmonic distortion(I owe credit to Zaph for making this observation) It's even more important to have an adequately sized port in this case since all of your output is through the port.
As far as stereo bass is concerned it's my opinion that the only things that make stereo bass audible as actually being in stereo are the exact same things that you want to avoid in a subwoofer such as harmonic distortion). Even if I am wrong an by chance the human ears can detect very low frequency sounds in stereo there is one other very important point to make. Any instument that makes sound has harmonics, and it will be those harmonics that your ears are able to locate. So unless you listen to recordings made up of low frequency sine waves mixed in stereo then I don't see much of a point to stereo subwoofers.
Jason