4 subs placement

primerib

Hi,

I have 2 PSW303's up front and I am now in the process of hooking up 2 PSW10's that arrived via mail order before Xmas and I have some time to do this. I plan on replacing the fronts with the 10's and move the 8's to the rear where my surround speaker are....or should I put them toward the front where my other ones are? Room is aprox 20X20 or more hence the reason I'm looking for additional oomf.

madnod

primerib wrote: »

Hi,

I have 2 PSW303's up front and I am now in the process of hooking up 2 PSW10's that arrived via mail order before Xmas and I have some time to do this. I plan on replacing the fronts with the 10's and move the 8's to the rear where my surround speaker are....or should I put them toward the front where my other ones are? Room is aprox 20X20 or more hence the reason I'm looking for additional oomf.

it's best to put one in each corner (keep about a feet clearance between the subs and the corners).

primerib

Thanks. This will get interesting considering how much sub cable I will have to buy.....but I'm sure it will sound pretty good even though these are really entry level subs.

Serendipity

Or in the middle of each wall (less reflections).

madnod

Serendipity wrote: »

Or in the middle of each wall (less reflections).

+1, forgot to mention that, also try to get/build rizers for your subs, u might find the result interresting.

allstock

I've probably got 25 hours into re-positioning my 5 subs, the best set-up so far is a little "interesting" location wise, but the time spent with experimentation is well worth it.
.

dekuda

I have lately read many posts that have two subs stacked. I thought conventional wisdom was to place subs towards the corners of a room. But the more I read about stacking subs the more I think I will have to give it a try:rolleyes: Might make it easier to set up properly.

nguyendot

Why wouldn't you just spend all that money on one really good sub instead of 4 "eh" subs?

There are some very good hsu subs out there for what you probably paid for those 4, that will probably outperform all of them combined.

primerib

nguyendot wrote: »

Why wouldn't you just spend all that money on one really good sub instead of 4 "eh" subs?

There are some very good hsu subs out there for what you probably paid for those 4, that will probably outperform all of them combined.

I have a 10" Mission sub (pretty expensive) that I tried down stairs without success....it is too big for 1 sub anyway you cut it, but I totally understand what you mean. I bought all these subs for about $600 and I will say that it blows away the Mission that I bought 4 years ago for $700. This room isn't quite square and larger than I originally said, and my problem is reflections unfortunately which I am trying to curb down with area rugs a different layouts.

primerib

allstock wrote: »

I've probably got 25 hours into re-positioning my 5 subs, the best set-up so far is a little "interesting" location wise, but the time spent with experimentation is well worth it.
.

OK....I'll bite.:D What is your layout?

cnh

I'd put them in respective corners of the room as well...and tweak from there.

OR..you could put them in the middle of the room right next to each other so that they form a bench seat and put a big cushion over everything...who needs a buttkicker when you're sitting on four subs? I am joking, of course!


cnh

allstock

primerib wrote: »

OK....I'll bite.:D What is your layout?

Well, I'll explain it as best I can, but I'll post some pics as soon as I can take some without my wife calling me a complete dork. Room is 12' x 30'. Front sub is 18" energy between left front and center speaker.Sub#2 is a 10" jl audio hard against the right wall about 8' back from the front. Subs 3&4 are mounted in the 2nd row seat riser in a custom ported enclosure 12" jbl's. Sub 5 is hard against the left wall,under the bar, about 4' from the back wall,another 10"jl.
Believe or not the bass is very even throughout the room, especially in the seating positions. Took alot of time with spl meter in my hand and moving things around, but the difference is incredible compared to just "plunking" them anywhere.
Oh ya, it rattles your teeth...:D:D

apphd

I'm new to much of this but from my understanding so far, conventional wisdom = stacked/co-located subs increase output, spread out subs work with each other to flatten out response.

Try to picture the sound wave as a large, low freq. (long) sine wave. It may be helpful to understand why placement is so critical to avoid nulls.
With different locations you can help fill the null from one sub, with the sound wave of another sub. So like cnh said a good starting point with 4 subs would be in the middle of each wall, or in each corner.

But as always no two rooms are the same so tweaking time is required.

STP7PTS

Sub hookup question. Currently use a Preamp Sony DA3100ES , Monster Cable Y splits the sub line level out to a NAD 925THX Power Amp. I use monster cable speaker wire to feed the 15" subs in each of my Klipsch KSP 400 main speakers from the NAD power amp. The speakers are bi-wired for the main l/r sound and l/r sub sound. I have a Sony SA-W3800 15" sub that WAS given to me as a gift. I would like to add the Sony sub on the back side of the room. Is it possible to split the line level feed again? If not, I have a Sony TA-E2000ESD preamp that is not in use. Can I pull it into the equation?

allstock

STP7PTS wrote: »

Sub hookup question. Currently use a Preamp Sony DA3100ES , Monster Cable Y splits the sub line level out to a NAD 925THX Power Amp. I use monster cable speaker wire to feed the 15" subs in each of my Klipsch KSP 400 main speakers from the NAD power amp. The speakers are bi-wired for the main l/r sound and l/r sub sound. I have a Sony SA-W3800 15" sub that WAS given to me as a gift. I would like to add the Sony sub on the back side of the room. Is it possible to split the line level feed again? If not, I have a Sony TA-E2000ESD preamp that is not in use. Can I pull it into the equation?

Mine goes from the subwoofer out on the receiver to the input on a dbx 120 and splits 5 ways. No issues, works perfect.

STP7PTS

allstock wrote: »

Mine goes from the subwoofer out on the receiver to the input on a dbx 120 and splits 5 ways. No issues, works perfect.

The dbx 120 splits the sub signal 5 ways? Is that a dbx 120A? Perhaps I should consider the dbx.

allstock

STP7PTS wrote: »

The dbx 120 splits the sub signal 5 ways? Is that a dbx 120A? Perhaps I should consider the dbx.

No, the dbx doesn't do the splitting, the split is after it, just a wye at each sub.
I wasn't sure it would work either, but it's perfect.

STP7PTS

Thanks everyone for the info.:)

primerib

Well, thanks for all the advice....after about a week of tweaking I finally have it nailed down. A few things I discovered for those who are doing something similar to me...it might help or it might not;

-Set up your bass levels on your subs individually, turn them all down to 0 and one by one up the manual volume control in the back until they all are at the verge of distorting. I marked each subs with a whiteout mark so after they all were done I had an easy reference.
-Phase the rear subs to 180 degrees and leave the front to 0. This helped when you put the rear subs beside the rear surround speakers.
-I found my THX receiver will adjust the LFE perfectly and set the speakers up at the best X-over setting when running analog from the bluray...the only thing I had to adjust was the speaker/sub outputs with the remote until it sounded right.
-Get a friend to help with the sub angle adjustment. I took the advice from another member here and found that all the subs were at different angles because of my bad reflections. 2 large area rugs helped tone them down considerably....curse those laminated floors in the basement for that one!! After a few days and some brews it all came together nicely.

All in all, sounds pretty darn good even with those PSW10's I have to admit.

B

agreece09

You could go a foot or so on either side of the keel centerline and still be fine. Make sure the transducer centerline is parallel with the waterline and not the hull.