ARENDAL 1723, Handbook, Page: 25 / 57

You will still get the fi rst refl ection from the opposing
walls, but that’s half the number of fi rst refl ections and
the resulting peak/dip structure in the room might be
slightly increased, but it will be simpler and more likely to
be similar across a wider number of seating position. This
presents a far simpler proposition for the Auto EQ in your
AV-Receiver or Processor.
But there is more
Each fi rst refl ection, sits on an indirect path to your ears,
that is longer than the direct path from the subwoofer.
So, it seems obvious that each refl ection having travelled
further, is time delayed. That a succession of delayed
signals arriving at your ear will time smear the original
signal into a longer, drawn out version. This is clearly
not accurate and is just another form of distortion of the
original signal, robbing the signal of dynamic impact and
obscuring bass texture.
This is important because, whilst we tend to visualize
sound in a two dimensional world of frequency versus
amplitude and love a graph showing a fl at response, our
brain very much processes sound using information from
the third dimension of time. Indeed, our brain has a very
diffi cult time differentiating a loud sound, from a quieter
one that lasts longer.
Of course, in an ideal world, we would have a fl at response
and a smooth fast decay of sound, but the decay time
dominates our aural perception, so these algorithms will
turn a given frequency down below the fl at response, in
order to trick our brains into hearing it as fl at. Against this
background, it’s easy to see why putting a subwoofer into
a corner, removes refl ections, simplifying the response
in both the frequency and time domains in a way that
modern equalisation likes to see and deal with and our
ear will hear as tighter and better defi ned.
But I want more subwoofers!
As a manufacturer of fi ne subwoofers, Arendal Sound
will not argue with you! In our defence, the benefi ts
of multiple subwoofers are well known, for extending
headroom, lowering distortion and increasing the depth
of audible response. There is no argument there. So where
do you put this second subwoofer?
The optimal position for a second subwoofer, is co-located
on top of the fi rst one. This is true, even if you can’t
put the fi rst one in a corner. The second best position
is co-located next to the fi rst one. There is a school of
thought that mirror image position of the fi rst one is
best, especially now some AV-Receivers and processors
have independently equalisable subwoofer channels and
the new, object based surround formats, can carry two
channels of sub-bass equalisation. However, we would
suggest that one (or effectively one in the case of two co-
located) better subwoofer will give superior bass.
In much the same way our Subwoofer 2’s take advantage
of using the mutual acoustic coupling of two drivers to
deliver signifi cant performance gains in place of one,
larger driver, without the drawbacks, two co-located
subwoofers confers the same advantages - Namely,
you get the full monty of a 6dB gain in output, or 6dB