However, having switched from wall mounted HTIB speakers to new floor standings I needed to find a new home for my subwoofer which I'd always kept against the front wall. A password will be sent to your email address. Your room is as much a part of your setup as your equipment. Hey all. Your third question asks, “Where’s the best place to locate my sub.” If only there was a magic bullet for that! All rooms have a multitude of bass problems apart from modal issues. While you didn’t specifically ask about a single subwoofer setup, let’s answer that question. Three of them are shown above. Also when it comes to the visual impact of the room and decor, multiple smaller units may be preferred to a single bulky subwoofer. The five things that you can do to control it are: Choose a room with dimensions so that the modal frequencies do not overlap; Place the seats where you are not at a modal peak or dip Sound waves will be reflected from these surfaces and bounce back and forth. but i was wondering about a sub or two mounted in the attic and pointing down through an opening in the ceiling. It will improve the bass performance and it will increase the listening spaces in your room. Preview some of the [...], Great article James. The rear position was far easier to access, and I had the PB10 there for quite a while. Seats too close to speakers will result in incorrect localization and the infamous “s… For dedicated rooms where these specific setups are a possibility, it’s worth exploring using four subwoofers for maximum results. The benefit of putting a sub in a corner is that you can get as much as a +3dB boost in your sub’s low-end response. The placement of subwoofers and listeners in small rooms and the size and shape of the room all have profound influences on the resulting low frequency response. Anthem ARC 2.x users (AVM 60, MRX) can connect your computer with ARC software to the AVM 60 over Wi-Fi. Consider the cords. Placing the sub at this location means that the 2nd axial modes are not excited. Another placement strategy is to have the low frequency driver in a null point, such as ¼ of the way across any room dimension or multiple dimensions. However, thanks to the great acoustic research team at Harman International we have some guidelines that will help. Here are three tips to help locate the ideal placement of your subwoofer: 1. The use of multiple subwoofers at different locations in the room has been propo… For instance, putting the subs in the front corners will excite the same room modes but from opposite points in the room, exactly 180 degrees out of phase with one another. As you suggested, the easiest way to make adjustments and see them in real time is to place the ARC USB microphone at the primary listening position and then have your laptop near your sub or subwoofers as you make phase and volume adjustments. One option is behind the TV, the other option is behind the listening position in the back corner. This performance comes at a price, however, since it intrudes more on the aesthetic and flow of the room with four subwoofers toward the middle of the room. This strategy requires a bit of room testing to identify where the peaks and nulls are located, so we can adjust the crossover frequencies of the system to work with sculpting the final room response. Todd authored a great article that you can read over at Audioholics here, If you want to read up more about sub placement, you can see this additional article at Audioholics, who summarized Brent Butterworth’s extensive measurements on the SB-2000 subwoofer, How to calibrate dual subwoofers on an Anthem AVM 60 and MRX Receivers, Anypro headphone stand: Smart design, budget price, How to extend USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 connections for media servers and DACs, How to play high-resolution audio with Apple iTunes. The room has the TV angled in the corner. what do you think? Contact us for free acoustical advice. With properly located dual subwoofers, the respective modal patterns will overlap, which greatly increases the sound wave density in the room. this would be super convenient for setup and i would have a lot of freedom to place them just so to avoid room modes. Chances are, all else being equal, the ¼ placement strategy will yield the flattest results, theoretically canceling all odd-order axial modes and the first even order axial mode. James Lindenschmidt is GIK Acoustics’ resident audiogeek. Wires lying across a floor are easy to step on and over time can damage the wire’s connection between your subwoofer … Next is 1/2 placement of both the front and the rear walls, which will further shift the modal response, putting the subwoofers in the null point of the first axial mode (rather than the second with ¼ placement). © Copyright 2016 - The Poor Audiophile - Site Designed by. I am in the process of building a room for my stereo in the basement. One is corner placement, where the two subs are placed in the front two corners. He records music, designs studios & listening rooms, and consults with clients to make better audio. If you don’t have measurement tools but do have room correction, then putting a single subwoofer in a corner is generally a safe bet since room EQ works best at low frequencies and can generally eliminate any subwoofer peaks. Cambridge Audio Yoyo (L) review: The perfect audiophile streaming speaker, The weekend project: Gefen’s HDMI to HDMI with audio conversion, How to find Speaker and Data Wires in your Walls. As far as placing the subwoofer on the floor is concerned, the quick answer is that this is not the best option. previously answered Nalin’s question about the proper way to set volume and phase with ARC with his two SVS subs. You could then cross the subwoofer over at 60Hz and the satellites at 80Hz, which can remove some energy from the peak and produce a flatter overall response (the exact frequency settings depend on the crossover slopes and the bandwidth of the peak in question). If you are using two subwoofers, it’s worth testing all these locations to see which gives you the best overall response, depending on which modes are most problematic in your room. My current arrangement is with the speakers placed along a 'long' wall and with a tweeter-distance-apart of approx 2.5m my seating position places me almost against the wall behind me. As an AVM 60 user, you have much more flexibility to use ARC and QuickMeasure. If you have a smaller room, there may just be one place that your subwoofer sounds good and can fit. Even “No Bad Seats” is difficult to achieve. That’s because two subs, placed at strategic locations in the room, will help to smooth out bass modes and nodes (i.e. If your room is a simple rectangular room then I often recommend being 3/8 out from a wall, rather than 1/4…. If your subwoofer requires a direct wire hookup to the receiver, you’ll want to make sure you’ll be able to hide the wires wherever you place the subwoofer. Because you need to put seats away from walls and surround speakers. What about dual subs like your situation? If the room has a good bass trapping strategy, then the room modes being excited in this way may not be as problematic and can sound much more controlled. I too have a small room (11x10x8) with only two possible subwoofer placement options for my PB10-NSD. I have a rectangular room 30 feet long and sit 7.5 feet from the rear wall – very close to my floor standing Avalon speakers ( which are therefore miles away from the front wall). The PB-2000, which is the ported version, had higher SPL output and garnered their certification for large rooms (more than 3,000 cubic feet or about 85 cubic meters). The final part of your question asks if your SVS-SB2000 subs are a good fit for your large room. Don’t put some subwoofers next to listening seats and others far away, as signals could cancel each other out and limit the output. In a room that small, trying to get low bass evenly throughout the room (like your "producers couch") may be tough. With more people working from home it’s important that you’re able to communicate effectively via [...], In this video we breakdown the fundamentals of diffusion by outlining the different types of [...], Here’s a great primer for diving into the science of room acoustics. The rear position was far easier to access, and I had the PB10 there for quite a while. Just a quick typo, SB2000 is a sealed subwoofer not ported, Today’s questions are a follow-up from our friend Nalin, an Anthem AVM 60 user. Todd Welti, who is the Senior Principal Engineer for Acoustics at Harman has arguably done the most ground-breaking research for subwoofer placement over the past two decades. The only other position you might want to try is the front corners. If you want to read up more about sub placement, you can see this additional article at Audioholics. Well Nalin, those were some great questions and hopefully we were able to provide you with some helpful answers. The second part of your question deals with the practical best way to get the measurements done. What’s the Difference Between FLAC vs ALAC Lossless for audiophile recordings? But if you have a subwoofer, or multiple subwoofers, it opens up a few possibilities for optimizing the audio system for a breathtaking response once the placement and treatment strategies are implemented. Small rooms generally mess up the bass with "room modes." For music playback in a small room, the overabundance or lack of bass energy is usually the most immediately noticeable audible characteristic, and varies greatly as you move about the room. Next is 1/2 placement of both the front and the rear walls, which will further shift the modal response, putting the subwoofers in the null point of the first axial mode (rather than the second with ¼ placement). He also writes and makes mead, at least until the revolution comes. That takes time and patience and the results are well worth the effort. I spoke to an acoustic engineer (Dennis Foley) and he told me the room was completely undoable as it is too small.The room is 22'x16'x6.5'. As valuable as these subwoofer placement strategies are, they do not by any stretch eliminate the need for bass trapping in a room. I would think it might, but I can't find any evidence for/against this, or measurements. Well, there’s a rule for that too. Place one sub at the 1/4 point and the second sub at the 3/4 point of the front wall (or the rear wall). Play some tunes with good bass (I use Donald Fagen's "Morph the Cat") and get the subs balanced with the mains. Room, and it 'll have huge peaks at some frequencies and levels can create a very accurate response! While you didn ’ t specifically ask about a single subwoofer in a corner contact me via or. 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