Down Firing Sub Question on Carpet

Mr. Mojo

I just ordered a PSWi 225 (down firing wireless sub).
My family room is fairly small, 15' x 12', and carpeted.
Is it worth the time to cut out a small 13" x 13" piece of plywood to sit the subwoofer on to increase bass rather than just have it sitting directly on the carpet?

Thanks for any help.

concealer404

I would say yes....

mhmacw

i would suggest 3/4 medite if you can or even a piece of tile from a flooring store .they generally have a left over from a job lying around.

Knucklehead

I have a 10" down firing sub that I use for XBOX play, my house has a crawl space so I purchased a decorative brick paver from home depot for $5, works perfect.

grimmace19

I just finished a project where I took a 3cm thick slab of granite (free from a buddy who works at a granite shop) and used silicone to attach cabinet feet to the bottom. Got a slight increase in sound quality but a huge decrease in vibrations in the room. If you can, the heavier the sheet underneath the better.

mshan242700

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_subdude/subdude.asp

Huck344

mshan242700 wrote: »

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_subdude/subdude.asp

Have you tried this? Does it work?

halo71

grimmace19 wrote: »

I just finished a project where I took a 3cm thick slab of granite (free from a buddy who works at a granite shop) and used silicone to attach cabinet feet to the bottom. Got a slight increase in sound quality but a huge decrease in vibrations in the room. If you can, the heavier the sheet underneath the better.

This has me wondering about doing something similiar. I have a piece of black marble left over from when I had my kitchen cabinet tops installed. Its about 16"x16" and, I think, 1 1/2" thick. Think I am gonna sit my sub on top of it and see if there is a difference. It's sitting on carpeted floor right now.

Mr. Mojo

halo71 wrote: »

This has me wondering about doing something similiar. I have a piece of black marble left over from when I had my kitchen cabinet tops installed. Its about 16"x16" and, I think, 1 1/2" thick. Think I am gonna sit my sub on top of it and see if there is a difference. It's sitting on carpeted floor right now.

Let us know!

thsmith

Subdude works very well. I have used it on hardwood.

grimmace19

The marble would work perfect. I originally didn't even put the feet underneath the granite and had good results. However, the feet actually helped a lot. Parts express sells them very cheap... I think I picked up 8 of them (2 subs and 2 sheets of granite) for around 70 cents each. Well worth it and because the slabs are so heavy the feet sink deep into the carpet so you can't even tell they are underneath.

Uilleann

I don't mean to sound off out of turn - but why not simply purchase a front firing sub to begin with? To my mind - this may solve many of the concerns you have about firing directly into a carpeted surface. I stand ready to be corrected of course.


Best of luck!

Brian~

packetjones

i have a peice of glass under mine. It is basically a glass cutting board i picked up for about $2. It made a significant improvement since i have thick carpet. It is worth a try to put something under it and see if it makes a difference.

I think that the subdude is mainly to reduce vibrations. i am sure it makes an audible difference as well but mainly to decouple form the floor.

concealer404

Uilleann wrote: »

I don't mean to sound off out of turn - but why not simply purchase a front firing sub to begin with? To my mind - this may solve many of the concerns you have about firing directly into a carpeted surface. I stand ready to be corrected of course.


Best of luck!

Brian~

I think there was just a thread on this... give me a minute, and i'll update this post with the link.


Here ya go!

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93988&highlight=downward

grimmace19

I haven't tried a sub-dude but one bad thing about it is that the normal size is too small for my woofer. Because of this, I was able to seek out the DIY option and save a ton of cash in the meantime.

Uilleann

In re-reading the original post, I'm wondering: are you only concerned with "increasing the bass"? If so, turning up the gain on the sub, increasing the line level output on your AVR to your amp or sub (if self amplified), or purchasing a second sub would all be viable options I would venture to guess. If you're wanting to alter the tone of the sub, that's where I woul think a front firing enclosure might serve you well.

Typical bass response in music, if played on a system that has a truly flat frequency response, is surprisingly softer than many of us realize. It is different than what you hear in clubs, at live concerts - and certainly far different from your average movie theater these days. Do you know how accurate your system's response is presently across the spectrum? You may be more accurate than you think!

Of course, your own ear is the final judge, and we all have our own feelings at the end of the day about what *sounds* best to us. I would suggest thinking about the kind of bass you're really looking for - if its simply sheer volume, its easy to do. Though I would think that more watts, a bigger driver, or multiple drivers would afford you much greater control than simply the question of carpet vs. hard surface.

Happily learning along with you here of course...

Brian

Huck344

thsmith wrote: »

Subdude works very well. I have used it on hardwood.

That's what I need mine for. Hardwood in the new house is sending tremendous amounts of vibration. I'll have to check it out further.

Mr. Mojo

To answer a couple questions here:
I'm buying the downfiring because it is wireless and will fit out of the way and will complement my other front firing subwoofer. The Polk PSWi225 has received good reviews and is inexpensive so I want to give it a try.

The reason I'm asking about adding a small platform to put it on is I thought it might have better performance if it was not sitting directly on the carpet which sould absorb some of the bass.

I really appreciate all the input here.

Derrick4Real

mshan242700 wrote: »

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_subdude/subdude.asp

Was thinking about getting this myself. I live on floor 2 of a 2 floor apartment (all hardwood floors too).

The consensus, from what I have read on the larger forums (AVS), is that its overpriced for what it does.

$60 for a velour covered unit...$50 for the regular one. Im digging it myself...

Heres another link for it: http://www.truesoundcontrol.com/products/SUBDHD.html

howardru

I just put all my components together over the last month and have been tuning all the components. My HT sits in a corner and I have little options for sub placement and have it behind the main component TV stand between the two VM30s. The Pro 600 has a remote for multple settings and I had it for set for Corner with 0 phase.

I was not about to move the sub to my typical seating position and crawl around on the floor listening to bassy-tunes to find out where the best place for the sub would be...because the ONLY place was behind the TV, in the corner.

So I downloaded that Bink Audio Test CD (See my post from yesterday) and ran the sub at varius Hz settings and walked around the room. I noticed that at 50Hz, the sub pretty much disappeared from my typical seating position. This was the only frequency that I had this much of a drastic sound problem. So I looked at these sub "elevators" and saw that the only one that would fit my Pro 600 was $80+. I said...to hell with that.

Well I took a ride over to Home Depot and picked up 3/4 inch MDF board and cut an 18" square. Painted it black and used some Gorilla brand Duct Tape to completely cover 3 standard bricks (for color match) and threw it all together. (Don't know why but 4 bricks made it unstable...go figure)

The lifting of the sub off the floor 3 inches and now projectin into the MDF board (instead of corner carpet) has restored the 50Hz bass back to my optimal seating position. Total cost for the board was $9 and I needed 1 more brick for 33 cents!

Who need to pay outrageously for such a simple solution?

Huck344

thsmith wrote: »

Subdude works very well. I have used it on hardwood.

Thanks for this recommendation. I bought the Subdude and got it late last week. As soon as I placed it under the sub, there was an immediate difference. Bass is much more tighter and nothing rattles. I would definitely recommend it for those with hard wood. Is it overpriced? Probably, but it did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Rivrrat

I have saltillo tile floors over a concrete slab, and I found the sound off the tiles to be too "boomy". I ended up putting a terrycloth dish towel under my sub to tighten up the sound.

shadowofnight

I had some laminated 2 inch maple bases made for my downfiring 15's....drilled small holes for the spikes...solid as a rock...no shifting.

Sherardp

Looks very nice bro. What subs you using Shadow?

howardru

ShadowofNight,

Nicely done. Great solid base to reflect back up the sound.

They must really heat up the room..especially in front of that fireplace :-)

Wife must love em!

DMara

mshan242700 wrote: »

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_subdude/subdude.asp

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1203280&highlight=Auralex#post1203280

The SubDude did help stabilize my old MicroPro 4000 :biggrin:

crazytasty

awesome subwoofers! What is the brand?