Subwoofer placement

Move your sub along the wall, and every so foot stop and listen -- until u find the best sound for u, thats all neone can tell you - other than that.......try the corner.

You're welcome and nice rig there... Particilarly intertested in your review of your Toshiba. My 32" is starting to feel a bit small as I go deeper into the world of wide-screen DVD's. Love the brand...

Never heard of "Athena", but no matter. One thing you won't find 'round here are a lot of folks with their noses up in the air. Polk tends to draw a crowd that's into value. We don't kid ourselves that there aren't better speakers out there, but feel that the price/reward curve does get pretty steep from here on out.

Can I ask how large the room is for your home theater?

Often times I hear people complain of a lack of warmth or a weak subwoofer. In both cars and homes. One thing I find to be a common problem is people over-buy a sub for thier application. Not to say you have done so yet because I do not know your specific application. However, the reason most people have for buying a huge sub is they want to FEEL it. Well, over powering a room with a sub is a good way to get some nasty response. You don't need the biggest baddest sub money can buy. You need something that isn't over-powered and will fit your application properly. I have heard 8 inch subs fill a 12x12x7 foot listening room better than a 12 inch sub because the 8 inch sub was designed and constructed for a small space to begin with. A 12 inch sub will work best where it has room to breathe, usually in a much larger room closer to say 20x20x9.

A way to remedy this is to reflect the sound off of walls. Reflecting the sound slows the sound waves down and makes the sub behave as if it were in a larger room. Facing the sub into a corner can get this affect for you. Also, reflected sub information tends to have a warmer and smoother sound. Since you said that your speakers and TV are in the corner, you might try stuffing the sub behind the TV in the corner.

One thing to remember about sub placement versus other speakers is that low frequency information is difficult for the human ear to localize. Sub manufacturers and designers capitalize on that fact by building downward firing subs and ports to reflect sound off of a floor or a panel. So, stuffing your sub behind the TV may prove to be a better idea than running it along the wall. Especially if the room is small. It will not only reflect the sound waves and smooth out the response but it will be harder to localize the sub which greatly increases the definition of your front sound stage. Overpowered subs or subs that are too large for the room will tend to skew a sound stage and sound harsh. Most people just turn them down to almost inaudible levels and then complain that the sub doesn't hit hard enough. For the other full-range speakers in your setup, the rely on direct information to build the sound stage and give you the surround sound effect. Since a sub is meant to fill in and reinforce the bottom end for these speakers, a single sub needs to radiate sound information for all 5 or 6 or 2 or however many speakers are in your system.

I was always told then when assembling a home theater or a stereo, the best way to approach placement and component selection is by thinking of the room as an enclosure itself and select the size, power and placement of your components accordingly. To do that, you must do the number one thing that everyone here has mentioned and that is research. Take measurements, audtion equipment and read up about the specs of the equipment and what the specs mean so that you can make an informed decision. Not only will it sound spectacular but you get a certain amount of satisfaction from a job well done!

Sub box design is a heavy hitter in the car stereo world which is where most of my experience comes from. Subs are subs. The only difference between the ones in your house and the ones in your car is power and signal source.

Any sub can be tamed. However, if your sub is constructed with your listening area and desired result in mind then it will be much easier to get teh sound you want.

In a car, most people who want big boom go for high power and large 12 inch or bigger subs. They provide alot of noise but are not as accurate and they don't have the frequency range of say a 10 inch sub in a sealed enclosure. In a large space, a bigger sub has more room to breathe and the sound has room to expand and even out. It takes away some of teh muddled sound of a larger sub. Which is why you see trucks and SUVs loaded with 12 and 15 inch subs.

I used to help a freind out installing high dollar systems in rich people houses. I learned alot through casual observations about how people with way too much money over buy things. We did an install for a guy who had a rather large home and a much smaller condo. The condo was for his extra-marital exploits. Well, he had my friend purchase the same equipment for his home and his condo. Since my friend was getting paid to do what the guy wanted, he got it and went with it. The condo room sounded harsh and it seemed as if the sound was bouncing off of teh walls in every direction. The same system at the house, in a listening room twice the size of the condo, sounded smooth and elegantand blended very well.

Now, all the equipment was the same except for the condo's listening room was 15x11.5x9 feet and teh house had a theater room of 35x22x10. Both subs were a 12 inch Velodyne with about 350 watts of power running through them, if I remember correctly. That sub was obviously way too much for the smaller listening room but filled the much larger room very well.

If you look at the room as an enclosure, you realize that stuffing a 15 inch woofer into a box designed to hold an 8 inch woofer just isn't going to work so well. So what you have to do is audition the equipment to see how it would sound, preferably with as similar an amp and signal source as you can find and then select your speakers based on that. Basically what it comes down to is the 10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound sack. All it does is make one hell of a mess.

So choosing your speakers based on room size, you can get a small 6 or 8 inch woofer in a small room with 200 watts to sound just as good and shake as much furniture as a 10 or 12 inch woofer with 400 watts in a larger room.

There is science behind it. It has to do with standing waves, resonant frequencies and wavelengths and such. Really too much science and physics to get into on an internet message forum. I will say thought that I have witness the application of this science in real life and it makes a very big difference.

With all of that said, full-range speakers like a tower set, you are pretty much limited only by your budget. By the time you reach the point where a set of towers will overpower your room, you are probably well beyond your budget anyway. This goes along the lines of a budget is exponentially related to the size of the room and the size of the house that room is in. We all have a finite amount of money and that is a major constraint. It is very cool to have the biggest baddest bragging rights but if your room can't handle your high dollar equipment and makes it sound like crap, whats the point?

Bigger is not always better.

Jstas,
Again I see your points, but given that Danny has his rig and his room, how do we help him to help them to get along?

Then you stub your toes a lot...

We must be willing to sacrifice for our sound.

Originally posted by Jstas
Can I ask how large the room is for your home theater?


A way to remedy this is to reflect the sound off of walls. Reflecting the sound slows the sound waves down and makes the sub behave as if it were in a larger room. Facing the sub into a corner can get this affect for you. Also, reflected sub information tends to have a warmer and smoother sound.

Thanks a lot for this tip. I turned my Velo CH12 towards the wall and the bass suddenly came alive. I could not believe I had this sub for 8 months and I can only now really enjoy its sound.

Originally posted by freid
Thanks a lot for this tip. I turned my Velo CH12 towards the wall and the bass suddenly came alive. I could not believe I had this sub for 8 months and I can only now really enjoy its sound.

That is something. A few details please…
How tight to the wall is the driver now?
Did the sound improve throughout the room or just in your primary listening position?
Not skeptical here, just curious as to whether you may have simply eliminated a dead area and maybe replaced it with a "hot" spot at your prime position.

Also wondering if firing into the wall at close proximity:
- turns the wall into a radiator; and/ or
- creates strong reflections that the cone could have to fight to its long-term detriment?
With a little more thought the latter seems unlikely, as down-firings are very near the surface they fire into, but then again then may be designed to take the reflections.
Dunno, just fishing here, wondering aloud… but I guess that was obvious…:rolleyes:

Originally posted by Tour2ma
That is something. A few details please…
How tight to the wall is the driver now?
Did the sound improve throughout the room or just in your primary listening position?
Not skeptical here, just curious as to whether you may have simply eliminated a dead area and maybe replaced it with a "hot" spot at your prime position.

:

Hi,

The room is 24x15x10. The sub is on the other long side of the room opposite the mains. When I turned the driver towards the (brick) wall at 10" from the wall the bass sounded much richer throughout the room.