Electronic multi-subwoofer mode control excels because it benefits many listeners at once.

Evidence

Adding further information and complexity to the discussion, Fazenda et al. (2012) subjectively and objectively compared several methods of addressing room modes. Unfortunately, they chose to degrade the measurement prior to equalization to 1/3-octave resolution. They then noted that this had detrimental effects in both the high-resolution frequency responses and in the decay rates of resonances. So, why was it done? The most useful observation was that the active multiple-subwoofer mode-control scheme CABS, discussed in Section 14.5.7, worked very well—even better than they thought was required by resonance detection criteria they had developed. This is in principle similar to SFM discussed in Section 14.5.8. So, if resonance detection at a single listening location is the only thing of value, the electronically processed mode control methods might be too good, but the additional value they bring is that multiple listeners can share the excellence, which cannot be said of other schemes. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1651

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to CABS (Section 14.5.7) and SFM (Section 14.5.8) mode-control methods detailed elsewhere in this chapter.