6
Obviously, not all rooms in a
normal home meet all these
criteria. If you have the option,
set up your home theater in the
room that comes closest. While
listening, shut the room’s doors
and windows (if practical). It can
make a surprising difference.
And if your listening room is
very large and/or opens out into
another room, it may be
desirable to add our optional,
passive
Slave Subwoofer
for
satisfactory high-level perfor-
mance (see pages 3 and 5).
Note:
Do not place the sub-
woofer in shelving that houses a
phono turntable. Strong bass
from the speaker, including the
turntable’s own rumble, could be
picked up by the turntable, fed
back out the speaker again,
picked up by the turntable yet
again, and so on. This condition,
known as acoustic feedback, will
muddy the sound or set up a
loud, low-frequency rumbling.
levels. In contrast, much of the
music on audio CDs should not
sound any different with the
Pow-
ered Subwoofer
properly adjusted.
Indeed, if the subwoofer does add
“boomy” or “thumpy” quality to
your music, you may have the
subwoofer level control set too high.
Note:
Always adjust the level con-
trol first. Fine-tune the low-pass
filter setting once you have arrived
at a satisfying overall Level Control
setting.
It may take several listening
sessions using different films and
musical sources to arrive at the
single best setting for the Level
Control. The Subwoofer Level Con-
trol is intended to be set once and
then left alone. Once you have
decided on a setting, use the Bass
tone control on your main electron-
ics to compensate for the inevitable
small differences in bass output
between different recordings. If you
experience any difficulty, don’t
hesitate to consult your store or call
a Cambridge SoundWorks Audio/
Video Consultant at 1-877-YES-HIFI.
The Subwoofer Level Control adjusts
how loudly the
Powered Subwoofer
plays. Start with it set midway (5),
then adjust upward or downward
depending on what you discover
during your listening tests.
Remember the
Powered Subwoofer
reproduces bass that is below most
frequencies of musical interest, so it
is important to adjust its output
level with material that contains
strong, deep bass signals. It’s easiest
to adjust the Subwoofer Level Control
when listening to the right film
soundtracks (HiFi video cassette,
Laser Disc, or Digital Video Discs).
Action or adventure film
soundtracks generally have the
deepest bass signals. Try effects
such as the Empire State Building
exploding in
Independence Day
or
other more recent films with explo-
sions or similar sound effects.
With the
Powered Subwoofer
properly adjusted, these film and
video sound effects should literally
be room-shaking at high playback
The Subwoofer Level Control
