ARENDAL 1723, Handbook, Page: 24 / 57

Subwoofer placement can make or break system
performance. As the foundation of rhythm, timing and
impact upon which music or movie soundtracks are
built, a poorly positioned subwoofer will deliver uneven,
tuneless, slow and soggy bass. The whole system will not
sound good. End of.
The performance of a subwoofer is inextricably linked
to the room in which it sits It is therefore impossible to
optimize the subwoofer without considering the room and
it’s contribution. This contribution takes two forms. The
fi rst is the structure of the waves refl ected within the room
and how they super-impose on top of each other to deliver
excessive peaks at certain frequencies, whilst causing total
cancellations at others. The second is the room’s ability
to absorb bass (or as you will hear it, let bass leak out)
through fl exible structures like stud walls.
Even though what follows may seem contrary to what
many will say (or rather parrot what they have heard)
there are good, solid acoustic reasons for what follows.
Here is why...
Corner placement
Arendal Sound therefore recommend starting with a front
corner placement. Try to use the corner with the most
solid structure - usually brick or block, or if in a timber
framed construction; the one with the larger, thicker
timbers which are usually an outside wall. Don’t get too
hung up on this, as your room is what it is.
But why a corner? For starters, a corner delivers the most
possible boundary gain, increasing for free, the apparent
bass output. You may not want all of this output, but you
can always turn the subwoofer down and as a result,
you will enjoy increased dynamic headroom and lower
distortion. That bit is standard subwoofer lore, but that’s
not the whole story, because corner placement delivers
two other benefi ts.
The fi rst of these is that you have greatly simplifi ed
the structure of room modes (the peaks and dips the
overlapping bass waves produce) and therefore the ease
with which you can tune the bass to fl at with EQ, for more
listening positions. This may sound counter-intuitive, as
corner placement is known for emphasising the axial
modes - the main ones that are associated with the rooms
largest dimensions. What corner placement does is greatly
reduce the number of refl ections within the room, because
in subwoofer terms, the wall against which the subwoofer
sits, is effectively removed from the equation of the fi rst
refl ections.
How so? If you place a subwoofer at some point out in
the room, all of the walls have a fi rst refl ection that will
bounce around the room to create modes. If you place a
subwoofer against a wall, the fi rst refl ection of that wall
is, to all intents and purposes, removed as the few inches
of clearance between the subwoofer and wall, mean they
are effectively the same place. Remember, we’re dealing
with wavelengths of metres in length, so even 30cm is
comparatively irrelevant. So, as that wall is effectively at
the subwoofer, it’s refl ection has been removed. Put the
subwoofer in the corner and you have effectively removed
two walls.
PLACEMENT & SETUP