Position a subwoofer? [see picture]

[Helical]

Anyone know much about positioning a subwoofer in a living room? Ideally (from a space point of view) it would go on the floor behind the corner tv unit, but its a big oak item so don't know if that will make sound bad?

Any suggestions?

[VEX]

On the floor behind the top sofa.

The beauty of Sub Frequencies is that the ear can not tell where they are coming from.

Given the room, what you are viewing etc, it should be fine behind there.

V.

[Toltec]

VEX said:

On the floor behind the top sofa.

The beauty of Sub Frequencies is that the ear can not tell where they are coming from.

Given the room, what you are viewing etc, it should be fine behind there.

V.

Depends if superposition means the sound is attenuated at the listening position, may need a little tweaking of the distance from the wall and phase. Definitely better than behind the TV though as you can get odd rattles and vibrations from the stand and kit on it.

[clived]

The boundary reinforcement from a corner position might make it hard to keep a lid on the bass (unless you like it turned up to 11 . Try it between the two sofas - I get away with this by using it as a table!

[VEX]

Remember a sub should only be heard after it is turn off. The number of systems I visit and the first things I do is turn the sub down, which improves the over all sound no end.

A sub can bolster the sound from a system so much more than just crash bang wallop.

V.

[Dr Z]

I would place the sub so that the listening position is not in a dead spot. I'm inclined to say behind the top sofa and experiment with it firing down the longer or shorter side of the room.

[legzr1]

What sub is it and are you using any active EQ?

[karma mechanic]

One way to help determine a good position is the 'subwoofer crawl'. You put the sub on the seat where you'd normally sit, and play some music with good even bass. Crawl around the room at normal sub height to find places where the bass is even and smooth. There will be places where it is one-note bass, and there will be places where it is a bit thin. Note the places where it sounds natural (or at least even) and those are the places where the sub can go for your seating position.

Repeat for the other sofa if necessary and hope that there is a location that is a compromise for both.

Why the crawl? It is easier than moving the sub around the room, and you need to be down at sub level for it to match.

[anonymous-user]

My first thought would be to keep it simple and just place it to the left of the tv.
Happy to be told why this would be the wrong thing to do though..

[HTP99]

Spumfry said:

My first thought would be to keep it simple and just place it to the left of the tv.
Happy to be told why this would be the wrong thing to do though..

That's where mine lives (well to the right), I was under the understanding that it didn't really matter where a subwoofer was positioned, mine is about 2 inches away from the wall with the speaker facing the wall.

[tankplanker]

A sub should be balanced with a decibel meter to about the same level as a test tone played from the speakers. Any half decent amp should be able to put out a test tone to each speaker and then the sub in turn.

I have a proper meter I bought years ago, but I know you can get apps for your phone to do the same thing but I can't vouch for how accurate they are.

If you like a bit more bass than normal you can set the sub to be "hot", a max of 5dbs over the speakers IMO. A 10db increase for the sub would be twice as loud as the speakers at the same volume level and far too hot for me.

If you have the inclination you should test the levels from each listening position, adjusting the position of the sub if you can't get the levels close enough by adjusting the volume for the sub.

Some subs have a phase switch, try it in both directions and go with which sounds best, one will sound a lot better than the other, normally the default.

[VEX]

karma mechanic said:

One way to help determine a good position is the 'subwoofer crawl'. You put the sub on the seat where you'd normally sit, and play some music with good even bass. Crawl around the room at normal sub height to find places where the bass is even and smooth. There will be places where it is one-note bass, and there will be places where it is a bit thin. Note the places where it sounds natural (or at least even) and those are the places where the sub can go for your seating position.

Repeat for the other sofa if necessary and hope that there is a location that is a compromise for both.

Why the crawl? It is easier than moving the sub around the room, and you need to be down at sub level for it to match.

Remind me to get my next Av Boy / Gopha to do that when we need to set one up. Loads of fun to watch!

[B17NNS]

karma mechanic said:

The sub crawl

I had visions of a gimp on a leash on his hands and knees for a moment then

[VEX]

What do you think a Gopha is?

[OldSkoolRS]

If your room is a simple square/rectangle shape, then you can use the room simulator part of a program called 'REW'. It's much more accurate than the 'sub crawl' which is very much open to subjectivity and will depend on what track you are playing.

I used the REW room sim when planning my room as contrary to some opinions it does matter where you put your sub(s) in a room if you want to minimize nulls since eq can't resolve those; peaks aren't so bad as eq can pull them down. When I got round to doing some measurements and fine tuning placement I found the sim was actually pretty accurate as my room is a simple rectangle. I ended up with one sub just out from each corner: I've never had such even bass before, easy to fine tune with room eq and it doesn't vary much when moving from seat to seat until when I had a single sub and had no bass in my seat and far too much where visitors would sit.

Failing that you can't beat using a mic and software to measure: You put the sub in the main listening position and move the mic around the room taking measurements. Once you find the best spot, you move the sub there.