4.0 always sounds better than 4.1, but it requires large main speakers and a good amp. Subs have always been a method to cheat a bit. In home theater, especially, a sub is good, because people don't have speakers the size of a small fridge.
This is why it's better musically to have a small stack of 8 inchers if you play bass as opposed to a chuffy 12-15 inch single driver - the bottom note on a 4 string bass isn't even 40hz!(41.204 hz). A 5 string is 30.868hz, which is as low bass notes go with rock and pop and so on.
35hz vs 30hz isn't a huge compromise.
Why do you say that 4.0 sounds better than 4.1? Are you talking car audio or home audio?
I completely agree that a subwoofer's primary purpose is for movies in home audio surround sound setups, but they can also perform well for other types of music if balanced with the rest of the system.
When it comes to rock & roll music the subwoofer isn't needed to reproduce a quality sound, but a subwoofer can make an incredible difference with Mannheim Streamroller music. I say "can" because the performance of the subwoofer is strongly tied to the environment that it is in. Generally, the home audio environment is conducive to much lower frequencies compared to car audio (35 vs. about 50).
If you have ever heard the Mannheim Streamroller Christmas Extraodinaire CD, the song Hallelujah has amazing bass if the room and subwoofer combination can reproduce it. I used to live in a rental house where the resonant frequency of the room was about 35hz and that song sounded like a herd of elephants would run from right to left across the room. My house, with the same speakers, simply won't reproduce the same sound (it's really sad) and my 4Runner system doesn't even come close. The song is on another one of their CDs and the bass was removed from that CD for some strange reason. On most systems there isn't any audible difference.
While a string bass can be reproduced without a subwoofer, I would think that something like a tuba would benefit from the added air movement to reproduce a more realistic presence?
I'd like to hear your sounds systems, I suspect they are high quality and sound great!
I have a set of Infinity IL-50s for my home audio (amazing bass and vocals) and I'm eagerly waiting for my Bose On-Ear headphones to arrive for work. The IL-50s come with a RABOS bass optimization system that lets me tune the bass response to the room. I can filter out the bass level at the resonant frequency of the room which allows me to bring the overall bass volume up without losing musical balance.
