NAD 658 streamer + NAD 298 amp + Dali floorstanding Opticon 8 - Add subwoofer?

Gpezzino

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Hello, the title probably captures my question pretty well. Context: my room is acoustically difficult, with hard stone walls, hard wood floor, and irregular shape, plus a half stone wall about 4 feet high in the middle of the room. There is also a grand piano a few feet from one of the speakers. I do not have flexibility in the position of the speakers, since I am not interested in a divorce :) . Using DIRAC on the 658 definitely improved the booming bass from the rear-firing Dali that sits about 2 feet from the stone wall.

I am looking for tighter (not necessarily louder) bass and better mid-range quality. I have no experience with subs in high end systems but my understanding is that by lifting some of the burden from the amp and the speakers' woofers a sub can help provide a cleaner sound at frequencies higher than those covered by the sub itself.

My questions:

1. Is that assumption true?
2. SInce I have DIRAC, would there be an advantage in having a sub with integrated DSP, or would that be an overkill?
3. Any recommendations for specific products? Budget is about $1,000 and I live in the USA.
4. Anything else I should know? If you think this is a dumb idea feel free to say so.

THANKS!!
 
Those Opticon 8s are beasts, I have the 6 and have them about 30cm from the wall, I found towing them out slightly helped with the base. How are you getting on with the NAD 658 and DIREC as I am interested in the streamer. Does your NAD amp not have a base control so you can reduce its severity?
 
How are you getting on with the NAD 658 and DIREC as I am interested in the streamer. Does your NAD amp not have a base control so you can reduce its severity?
I like the NAD 658 a lot, and as I said using DIRAC helped quite a bit. Before I had the DIRAC filters generated I played with the bass control and it did help a little, but DIRACT really made a difference.

But since I have such a difficult room to deal with I thought a sub perhaps would help not only with tighter, less booming bass but also with cleaner midrange, if the NAD preamp filters out the low bass before sending the signal to the 2 speakers.
 

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