Ah - I don't have great audio vocabulary, so bear with me.

When I adjust the FF4 crossover to better match the SS50s, it's playing mostly "mid-bass", and very little (if any) really low bass. This means that to fill what I perceive as an audio-gap, I then lose the very low frequencies that the FF4 can hit.

It's similar to this review which was just posted: www.hometheaterhifi.com/home-theater-spe...ldenear-supercinema-

Where the author said these things:

"I settled on crossing the mains with the sub at 110 Hz and the rears at 120 Hz."
"Mid range was full, but the lower midrange seemed a bit weak. More adjusting with the crossover might blend the low mid with the upper bass."
"Jack Shafton from GoldenEar Technology explained to me that the low midrange would actually be re-enforced when the speakers are wall mounted."

This mirrors what I found, which emphasized more tweaking to get the subs to fill in missing lower-midrange sound from the SS50's, although my listening was with low-midrange lacking on wall-mounted SS50s. Would floorstanding SS50s have even less low-midrange? What are those passive radiators doing?!

My concern with using two FF4's would be cost, configuration, and the overall "imitation" of T2s. The price of two FF4's, and two SS50's are about $100 less than just purchasing two Triton II's. Additionally, the two FF4 placement seems to be recommended at the front of the room - creating a larger footprint. Even if those things weren't an issue, you'd still be fiddling with crossover settings and tryiing to get good spectrum coverage.

The Triton II's seemed very well balanced across the board, with very little tweaking - which leaves you to fret over which track to play next. The only problem is how to fit them into a middle-sized room.

Anyway, thanks for the information. I really do appreciate the time and effort you've taken to answer my questions.

You're very welcome. Thanks for your continued interest.

Just as a follow up, the reviewer did eventually get a blend he was happy with, so "fiddling" is the answer. There should be a happy combination between sub level and crossover choices that gets you there. It is probably worth noting that many of these issues can be easily addressed with a good room eq system that would set levels, crossovers and correct for location-based frequency anomalies. Read Dennis Burger's HomeTechTell follow up to the GoldenEar SuperCinema 3 review during his review of a new Anthem receiver, indicating he reconsidered some prior comments about frequency balance after using room correction to setup the system.

Regarding the SuperSat 50 with two ForceField 4 subs, we also recommend speaker wire connection through the subs' speaker level high pass output. This gives you stereo subs along with your Left/Right mains and the high-pass crossover has been predetermined (no fiddling, although you still need to adjust sub level and low pass). As far as floor space is concerned you're right of course, the two subs will take up floor space (although not as much as Tritons positioned a reasonable distance from the walls).

That was a hillarious article! (here, if your curious: m.hometechtell.com/hometechnologytell_mo...rx-700-a-v-receiver/)

Being that I have a Marantz, and they are coupled with Denon - I wonder if I'd get the same un-inspiring performance from the satellites. I continue to hear great things about Anthem receivers, expecially ARC.

The FF3 subwoofer I ordered is in, so I'll drive up and give both the SS50 cinema system and the Triton II's another listen.

Thanks

Picked up my ForceField3 tonight and decided to give the SS50 cinema another listen since I was at the dealer. This time I simply crossed over the sub a lot higher and tried to forget about the low-end bass. This did make an appreciable difference, especially with higher quality movie soundtracks - though I wish I could have had some time with the crossover settings for the SS50s. I would agree with your earlier statements about needing a second sub though.

Unfortunately, my FF3 sub is defective - it seems as if the amp is bad, which is a bummer. I was looking forward to hearing what it could deliver.

Oh no - bummer is right. So sorry to hear that, this is the first defective ForceField that has been reported so I am very surprised. They all get double QC checks.

Oh well, stuff happens. Please have the dealer exchange it for you. I'm sure they'll be contacting us shortly to return it so we can find out what went wrong. I have a ForceField 3 at home right now and it continues to amaze me. Seems to be breaking in nicely as it has clearly gotten more impressive and tuneful the longer I've used it.

Our apologies for the problem, hopefully you will have an immediate replacement to enjoy.

I was able to borrow a FF4 overnight and although the sub put out a good amount of bass, it boomed more than I'd like as well as rolling off a little higher than expected. When I returned it, the dealer let me overnight demo a velodyne optimum 8, and two SS3's with a SS3center.

In my small-to-medium sized listening room - the SS3's are spread about 13' apart. It's pretty amazing what this did for the sound. For whatever reason, the SS50 cinema system didn't sound that impressive in the dealer demo room, but the three SS3s paired with a VO8 & another 'mid-bass' sub sounded really great. In fact - it was much, much better than the dealer setup.

I took that pairing through about 2.5 hours of music, and jumped through 7 movies - and came away very impressed. While I won't be pursuing a Forcefield sub, I will be chasing down the components for a Supersat50 cinema system. Those HVFR tweeters are something magical, and pairing with a sub that produces tighter bass created a great system.