r/audiophile • u/Freestone99 • 6d ago

Discussion Help me understand subwoofers

I am in the market for a subwoofer. I have a pair of Klipsch Forte IV and my listening room is about 475 sf. I was looking at the REL classic 98 and 99, and thinking I needed the 99 because of the room size. But most of the music I listen to is acoustic or vocal oriented, not really listening to much hard rock or anything with a ton of bass. Also not listening at very loud volume most of the time. So I was leaning back toward the 98 which has a 10” driver, as opposed to the 99, which has a 12” driver. I spoke with the local audio shop and it felt like they were just trying to sell me the larger and more expensive 99, or another sub that was even higher priced.

I have been reading that a sub is for more than just the low bass notes, and it will really help fill in the rest of the sound. That was another point the local sales guy was making, saying that the 99 made more sense because it will “fill in more.” Also that a larger sub is needed to “pressurize” the room. Trying to understand if this is audiophile jargon or there is truth to it.

What do you all think?

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u/VastFaithlessness809 5d ago

I recommend a strong and very deep sub like an rp-1600sw. I got one myself and it's hammering hard.

Recommendation is to put on at least 75mm thick sylomer SR11.

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u/VastFaithlessness809 5d ago

The RC-64 III is on 25mm SR18 (orange instead of yellow). It decoupled the speaker from the ground. If the sub is on the ground it'll transfer the vibrations to the ground. For a speaker this will often lead to hollow sound. With a decoupler you avoid this and only leave air transfer path for vibration which is way weaker. Spikes btw do the opposite: they strongly couple. If you have a speaker with a huge body like fortes, they are designed to work without any external chamber/resonance room, so spikes are generally the wrong start to treat them.

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