I find, to my ears, that my M50s do a fine job on bass with music without a sub. For movies the sub IS a requirement.
I may have another area giving me an "advantage": The fact that I use an M3 as center. The M3 has a bass "hump" of about 3db or so and by raising the bass in my receiver(centered on 50hz)I am raising the crossover point of my M50s up, as well as those frequencies coresponding with the bass hump that I'm already used to with the M3s! In other words; the M50s DO NOT have a bass hump, while the M3s DO, but by raising the bass in my receiver, I am more closely approximating the sound of the M3. And THAT, to ME, is a Good Thing!!
I'm also not sure, that if a person was absolutely secure and comfortable and happy with a speaker with 8" polypropyline woofers and a soft dome tweeter; that they would ever likely find the quantum jump to smaller aluminum woofers and titanium tweets a good trip!
