Ok guys I've been pretty absent from this so I'll try to explain why I use surround subs. First of all the DD and DTS spec does say that all five channels can carry a full range signal. Of course whether they do or not depends on the person mixing the sound.
About four years ago there was an article in Widescreen Review magazine that talked about bass in general, but it also talked about how there's bass "below" 50hz recorded into the surrounds that we're all sending to our LFE sub(s), by setting our surrounds to small. So I decided to get a couple of subs for the surrounds and see if this is true. In order for this to work properly you need to run a speaker wire from the amp or receiver to L/R input on the sub and then run a separate wire from sub L/R output to the surround speaker. Then set the surround speaker to large in your receiver or pre-amp. By sendig a full range signal to the sub you'll be able to use the subs crossover to control what stays in the sub and what goes to the surround speaker. Esentially what you're doing is turning a small surround speaker that only goes down to 75hz(like mine) into a full range speaker by adding the sub.
Movies like U571 for instance take on a whole new feeling. There's scenes with thunder while they are taking over the German sub and with surround subs the roar of the thunder comes from either the left or right side of the room and it's impressive. Without the surrounds subs it's barealy heard when redirecting the bass to the LFE subs by setting the surrounds to small. Having the surrounds subs makes a noticable difference.
Here's some links to six pages of movies that have bass below 50hz mixed into the surrounds. I have the rest of the article from Widescreen Review if anyone is interested. The article is from 2001 so there must be a LOT more movies by now with bass below 50hz mixed into the surrounds.
http://pages.cthome.net/lradden/ht/surroundbass1.jpg
http://pages.cthome.net/lradden/ht/surroundbass2.jpg
http://pages.cthome.net/lradden/ht/surroundbass3.jpg
http://pages.cthome.net/lradden/ht/surroundbass4.jpg
http://pages.cthome.net/lradden/ht/surroundbass5.jpg
http://pages.cthome.net/lradden/ht/surroundbass6.jpg
Just scroll over and check out the right most column of each page.
To enlarge the images just hover over the image and click the "sizing" block in the lower right corner.
Hey guys thanks for the nice comments on the room.
Legairre
