the CLX review is here....

[David Matz]

Agreed, listening to DCD without a sub is a crime

But the bigger point is, there is precious little music that does NOT benefit from a sub.

Since it's trivial for me to turn on and off my sub (via a button on the speaker processors), I have tested what a system that only goes to 60Hz (close to the same cutoff and roll-off of a CLX), and let me tell you, there is little content where it's not immediately obvious that something is missing.

Even solo acoustic guitar has tones that are 'fuller' with the sub than without.

Solo piano absolutely requires a sub, or your missing the lowest octave.

And in all cases, a good recording captures some room 'ambiance' that is in the infrasonic range, a really good sub ads this back to your room and you get that sense of space.

Then there are some crappy recordings that have the rumble of trucks going by, the 'thunk' of a mic boom being bumped, etc. all nicely reproduced by the sub

Of course, there are subs, and there are good subs. A good sub, like a big IB, will move plenty of air (>10 liters of displacement for a moderate room), have vanishingly low distortion and be able to hit SPL's of 102 or way above (preferably flat to 20hz with less than 1% THD at 105dB SPL).

No open panel speaker will ever do that, so by definition, a good full-range speaker system based on a panel will require a sub.
The question is: how well integrated is that sub?

I give ML credit for engineering a custom crossover and EQ for their sub to match the CLX and provide a total system solution as Jeff has reviewed.

Jonathan,

Great Post! How difficult is it to integrate a sub with a speaker without losing some of the virtues of the speaker, such as detail and transparency? How much of the limitations are technological/ physical (I think Wilson charges a bunch of $$$$ for their sub because it does something to the phase that other brands don't) vs. set-up skills? Thanks

 

[tonepub]

Maybe I've just been lucky with the Descents, but everyone that's listened to them has felt like they take nothing aways from the CLX sound. But again, it's room size. If you want to move a lot of air, you need a big room, otherwise you start to overdrive the room pretty quickly.

I wish my room was bigger. (someday).

If you aren't listening to a pair of mini monitors very nearfield, the bigger room really helps, because a part of live music is the spatial cues that your brain picks up on from musicians being spread out in an acoustic space.

Whenever I've had the opportunity to listen to a good system in a big room, it has always been a more believable presentation. People often times talk about how hearing a live orchestra sounds so much more real. A lot of it is the spatial information that your brain is processing from all those instruments in a big space.

Putting a pair of speakers in a 12 x 14 room just won't make up for that, no matter how careful you are setting the speakers up. That's not to say you can't get good sound in a small room, but that sense of realism is much harder if not impossible to achieve.

As for the subs vs. no subs, a lot is a matter of taste. For me, I'll put up with a few less molecules of transparency to get the weight that the Descent's provide with the CLX. It's always a personal choice, but I listen to much too wide of a range of music to not use them.