Subwoofer 101: How to place and set up your subwoofer | TechniicalGuru

Setting up a subwoofer can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be

A / V awesomeness scale, some components are great as subwoofers. There is something right about the box created for the sole purpose of rubbing your bones with monstrous short notes. We think everyone should have at least one - but two are better. Unfortunately, the more subtle winners are, they can be powerful.

Unless you have found a strong control over acoustics science and have a deep understanding of how your A / V equipment works, then installing and installing a subwoofer for optimal performance, having a sweat of test and error Can be the case. Although it is impossible for us to guess and reply to innumerable variables (type of floor type, roof type, room dimensions etc.) for each room, but we can point you in the right direction. Our aim is to give you tools that you need to understand on your own. There will still be some trial and error, but at least this will be an educated trial and error; And at the end of all this, you are enjoying a better bass. Yay for bass! Now let's do this.

WHY A SUBWOOFER?

You can create more (and far better) bass for your dollar with a box objective, to belt it. Subwoofers are less obnoxious than the floor-standing speakers with drivers on a large scale to pull the same task. In addition, there is a dedicated power on the board to reduce the stress on your A / V receiver or multi-channel amplifier in the sub-board. In essence, they are a more efficient way to meet the low-end needs. The proper integration of a subwoofer will also improve the quality of the overall sound of your system, which will add depth to your sound system's depth and width as well as add better sound to your loudspeakers because they are relieved of lifting too much. .

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACEMENT

Most people do not think about this in this way, but when you listen to an audio system, what you actually hear is the effect that is in the audio system in your room. Walls, windows, and furniture paint all the sounds you hear, but bass frequencies are especially sensitive to room factors. That's why appointment is really important.

The biggest enemies of your subwoofer are parallel surfaces - you know, those crazy things are called walls in your living room or den. Bass waves are essentially omnipresent, so they bounce throughout the room. When they reflect your walls, they often bounce back in one another, make one of two scenarios: permanent waves or bass tap.

Permanent waves (which are affected by the size of your room and the length of the sound wave) are more of bass energy. This occurs when a specific frequency is reinforced at almost equal time and place by the factors of the room or the same wavelength. What you hear in such a case is that "wee" effect or "one-note bass" which lack definition or tension. There are bass tapes on the opposite end of the spectrum, which happens when the reflected waves cancel each other, leaving you with a dead place.

To cope with the acoustics of the room and their effects, you can choose to work with the room or vice versa. Including acoustic treatment with smart subwoofer placement and adjustment to work with the room. Working against the room can range from fancy EQ to room improvement software. When possible, we later prefer the strategy of the former.

WHERE TO PUT IT

As a general rule, keeping your subwoofer in a corner or near the wall is going to result in more bass, but not necessarily the best bass. Small, low-power subwofors, such as home-theater-in-the-box systems and the soundbar, come with small drivers using low-powered amps and thus, with some limit reinforcement Benefits. Unfortunately, all of you are actually getting more of the same bogus bass. While we believe that a corner is often the most convenient option, it is rarely the ideal choice.

Subwoofer with large drivers and more powerful amps are not required to bow down on your wall to help. In fact, at least 8 to 12 inches from any wall, high-quality sub-optimal looks. Subwoofers also do better in half of the front of your hearing, keeping your front-channel loudspeaker closer to reduce time delay and phase cancellation.

Here are some useful suggestions for your sub, depending on the type of flexibility your sub is, and what to expect from staying there.

Carte blanche:

So can you place your sub anywhere? Well, congratulations to you. No, seriously, this is great because very few people have the flexibility for you. But, since you have liked it, here are the suggestions we suggest: take your listening chair or away from the place where you normally sit. Now, paste your subwoofer in the same place where your chair used to be and was loose with some heavy bass material. Walking and crawling around the room, listen carefully where the bass seems most and defines. This is not about the intestine kick for the intestine only. You want to hear the tumble (tonal quality) and the texture of the notes. Put a piece of tape on the floor below when you notice that things look good, go to the other place. Keep doing this so that you can narrow the winner if you do not have 3-4 options.

Anywhere in the front:

"Follow the Rule" for subwoofers. The idea is that, keeping your subwoofer on one-third way in your room is measured with the wall, you reduce the incidents of standing waves and tap. To be said mathematically, by following this guidelines, your seat will be replaced by a "good bass spot".

It has to be in the corner:

Look, no one wants to keep Baby in a corner, but sometimes you have to do it. Here's what you can do to reduce the problems coming from putting a substrate in one corner. First of all, if your subwoofer is ported to the back of the cabinet, then you can stuff the ports with tennis balls, rubber balls, or even roll the socks to seal the cabinet. And you can cut off your conversation with the wall behind it. Many manufacturers now provide custom plug-ins with their products so that you can experiment with sound. Second, take the subwoofer at least 6 to 8 inches from the corner. Crawl a friend with some pizza for you on the floor; To find the perfect location, take subwoofer in a few inches in each direction. Just make sure they will not be mad with the volume.

Under a couch or table:

This is not the worst plan in the world, but the sound hole is expected if you actually have small satellite speakers which depend on sub for more than 120Hz frequencies.

Inside another cabinet:

We understand that, sometimes, certain conditions can not be eliminated. But you have to know that this is the worst case scenario. Putting a sub inside another cabinet, too much defeated the purpose of a subwoofer. Those non-directional low frequencies require room to breathe in the room, and you lock them in a closet and close the door.

Inside the wall:

This is becoming more and more popular with custom installer, and when some really good in-wall subwoofers are available from JL Audio, Paradigm, and B & W, then it should not be considered even to install the type of product - As long as you are not really; , Is really good at repairing the drywall, and still you take the risk of annoying the neighbors seriously. In-wall subwoofers need to be professionally installed with a special box that is designed to keep the subwoofer cabinet and separates it from the rest of the room. Well done, it can be an effective solution. Remember one thing: in-wall subwoofers are really expensive because they often require external amplification, crossover and a lot of work to set them up properly.

What about wireless:

If this is the wiring in which you have compromised on subwoofer placements, consider acquiring SVS such as soundpath wireless audio adapters such as wireless subwoofer adapters. This did not get rid of the need to find a convenient power outlet (in fact it adds to that requirement), but it eliminates the need for a physical link for your A / V receiver or amplifier. If you get one, make sure that it is designed for ultra-low-latency. Some bluetooth models have an unacceptable amount of delay; This is fine for headphones, but when you are trying to sync with nine other wired speakers, then shoddy.

AUTOMATIC VS. MANUAL CALIBRATION

Most mid-range and A / V receivers now provide one-of-a-kind automatic room improvement (ARC), and when they do a good job of detecting things like speaker distance and channel levels, they are wrongly It is wrong when it comes to determining a crossover. Settings. For the purposes of this discussion, the word crossover refers to the point at which a speaker closes the production of bass and handles subwoofer. As you can imagine, this setting is important for getting the best possible bass response in your room.

Some ARC software works better than others. Antham's ARC is by far the most effective, which we have seen, followed by Sonos Truplet, which is primarily more effective as it only has to deal with a handful of Sonos speakers. Yamaha's YPAO, the Odyssey and others are usually less effective.

Rather than rely on automated systems, determine the best crossover settings for your system yourself. You can still use automatic calibration for the rest of your speakers, and only check subwoofers manually. To learn how to do this, see below.

Next, play some bass-deep music (movies are unbelievable and some are not familiar to your ear). If you see a clear drop in the bass energy (which we call "suck-out") near the bass energy (or which we call "sub-outfor" and the main speaker crossover) when you hear, Need to make adjustments. Play and listen to the same track again and again while your friend changes the phase setting (this can be a continuous dial or a simple switch with one or two posts). Stop when you arrive at the setting that is the result of full sound. If the adjustment phase does not get rid of your suck, then the problem may be due to poor placement. Go back to the Placements section of this guide and try again.

Regarding the volume, it is a mistake to crank the volume dial of your subwoofer into its maximum setting. Instead, set the volume dial to approximately 75% or so and instead adjust the subwoofer output level from your A / V receiver or pream / processor. Turn the volume up and down first into wide swings, then in small increments until you reach the point at which you do not actually notice subwoofer. It must essentially "disappear" in the sound, it creates confusion that your whole system is reproducing all of that bass reaction. A well integrated subwoofer will also extend the soundstage in terms of both depth and width.

If you are looking for an easy but least rigid way to dial in your crossover, subwoofer maker, SVS, there is a good set of guidelines for cut-off frequencies of different sizes and speakers.

DIALING IT ALL IN

Once you find the best place for your subwoofer and make some necessary system settings, you have to dial in sub-step, crossover point and volume. The smaller the other speakers, the higher the frequency of the subwoofer crossover. If you do not already know what your speakers are able to do, then see the Frequency Response SPECS for your speakers in your manual or online. Now take that number, and toss it up to 10hz.

It's easy to set a crossover dial: crank it all the way. This will essentially beat the sub-internal crossover, allowing your A / V receiver to take care of the work. If you are not using an A / V receiver or pream / processor to control your crossover (maybe using a line level input for a stereo rig), set the crossover closer to the point at which you Want to start production of sub. Bass This is usually based on the speaker rated low-frequency extension. You can have your friend too (are they still around? Hopefully they did not eat all the pizza.) Start with crossover dial, and gradually bring it up until you feel That's a good mix between your main speakers and the sub



Next, play some bass-deep music (movies are unbelievable and some are not familiar to your ear). If you see a clear drop in the bass energy (which we call "suck-out") near the bass energy (or which we call "sub-outfor" and the main speaker crossover) when you hear, Need to make adjustments. Play and listen to the same track again and again while your friend changes the phase setting (this can be a continuous dial or a simple switch with one or two posts). Stop when you arrive at the setting that is the result of full sound. If the adjustment phase does not get rid of your suck, then the problem may be due to poor placement. Go back to the Placements section of this guide and try again.

Regarding the volume, it is a mistake to crank the volume dial of your subwoofer into its maximum setting. Instead, set the volume dial to approximately 75% or so and instead adjust the subwoofer output level from your A / V receiver or pream / processor. Turn the volume up and down first into wide swings, then in small increments until you reach the point at which you do not actually notice subwoofer. It must essentially "disappear" in the sound, it creates confusion that your whole system is reproducing all of that bass reaction. A well integrated subwoofer will also extend the soundstage in terms of both depth and width.

WORK WITH YOUR ROOM, NOT AGAINST IT

Instead of trying to impress your room's sound, turn your room down, lowering your room's sound, because it does not affect the sound at first. One of the easiest ways to do this is to do any type of acoustic treatment in the corners of the room. You can go with a bass trap or some other purpose sound-absorbing device, but they can be expensive ... and ugly. To expose acoustic disturbances in the corners of your room, try to keep a piece of furniture (Avoid glass or flat surfaces - that's what we are trying to fix here!) Or a large potted plant (this fake It is possible). Space. Cabinets full of books are great for such things.

If you have hardwood or concrete floors, investing in some carpet or rug will be of great help. For people with hardwood floors, floor spikes and protective disks under your sub will make a difference. If you want to spend more money, you can also consider a dedicated subwoofer stand (yes, they make it).

Conquering the room

Many people are proud of the "ideal dimension" of their listening room. In general, low audio problems with larger rooms, low frequency waves (nodes and antinodes). To achieve smooth and even bass, the roof length is 10 feet, width is more than 12 feet and length 25 feet (30 or more deep bass) is required. Dimensions (including diagonals) should not have multiple wavelength multiples to prevent buildup on octave resonance. Of course, large rooms may require absorption to keep recombination time low, but vertical waves do not create oddly in large rooms. It is also important to use absorption so that the time of decay at low frequencies is almost identical on middle and high frequencies. This is called "neutral chamber".

Lightweight, flexible walls act as diaphragmatic absorbes, where some bass frequencies will exit the walls, they will never return. In my opinion, the ideal is a concrete concrete wall, but proper construction with plaster lathe, wood, and / or double sheet rock can yield similar results. But solid walls create their own problems; World-class rooms usually require some absorption and / or expansion to deal with echoes and echos. Look out for the cavities within the walls, which can cause resonance. Creating a large room with good bass feedback, internal acoustics and separation is the role of a professional acoustics. This article will share some secrets in the fine turn of the system in good rooms; There is no dream of making a room from scratch without hiring an acoustics.

DOUBLE DOWN

Before we share our last advice, keep in mind that we are not salespersons - you are not interested in paying your hard earned money. The fact that we are going to tell you is true. We have tried it ourselves, and the results are fantastic.

Subwoofer 101: How to place and set up your subwoofer | TechniicalGuru

Conclustion at glance:

A good subwoofer crossover / amplifier usually provides interconnected connectivity with the satellite system in more than one way. The best is that which has the least effect on the sound of the key system. I do not like to interfere with satellites feeding (main) power amp line connections. 

If your preamplifier does not have an extra pair of buffers output, then I recommend using the speaker-level output of the main power amp. Origin provides high-impedance transformer-coupled balanced input on the banana connectors designed to accept speaker-level signals. 

Connect the output of the main power amp in the input of the sub amp with the simple amp cord with banana at each end. No actual current is being pulled, so the wire gauge should not be heavy. Double-banana makes it easy to turn subwoofer's polarity, which is an important part of the testing process. 

Some subwoofers use a 12 dB / octave crossover, the other 18 or more. The interesting thing is that for reasons which we will not discuss here, a 12 dB crossover slope requires a woofer that exits polarity with the main system. 

In my new all crossover, 24 dB lowerpass slopes have been used, which also require reversal of polarity, but to make it easier on the mindless, the internal connections are reversed, and you have the "hot to" between the main power amplifier Hot "should connect wafer amplifier. 

Do not leave anything to doubt - we must confirm the correct polarity. The steep slopes like 18 and 24 dB are a good option for Subweeper to roll, before it intervenes in the Midregon response.