Dynaudio Sub 6, User Manual, Page: 13 / 35

Installation
Positioning
Although the position of subwoofers in the listening room is generally less critical than full-range speakers, we still
recommend that you select your Sub 6 position carefully. With careful positioning the subwoofer will integrate
more seamlessly with the other speakers in the system, and interact optimally with the room acoustics.
The following notes should be taken as rough guidelines; bass response in general is very dependent on the
acoustics of the listening environment. Finding the best position often involves a lot of trial-and-error
experimentation. Always trust your ears, even if the position of the subwoofer seemingly goes against the
guidelines.
Contradictory as it may seem, good integration of subwoofers has been achieved when one isn’t aware that a
subwoofer is present at all in the system, yet performance involves fast, deep and solid bass without sounding
stressed, even at loud levels.
Choose adequate music material
When experimenting to find the optimal location, use a couple of music tracks with repetitive bass across a large
spectrum. The tracks should be sufficiently different from each other and each should cover a wide bass-range.
Musical instruments, such as a double-bass, bass guitar, church organ, etc. cover a wide spectrum in the bass
region and are therefore very suitable. Using non-music (such as action movies) material to position and adjust the
subwoofer with, may lead to spectacular results with such material but almost always it will result in overblown and
excessive bass when playing music with the same setting.
Impact of room-modes
Every listening environment will have specific “room-modes”, whereby in some specific locations in the room and
at particular frequencies, the bass may be too much or too lean. This effect will be stronger in square and “shoe-
box” shaped rooms. With a single subwoofer, the better position for the subwoofer relative to the listening position
will be the one where bass is perceived to be neither too much nor too lean at any given frequency.
When using a single subwoofer, placing the subwoofer at the listening position, moving around prospective
placement positions and listening/measuring to the result can often give a good indication of the performance of
the subwoofer. Using a broadband signal, such as pink noise available in the RTA section of the Dynaudio Sound
Meter app (available free from the Apple app store), should highlight any impact of room modes in the frequency
response.
The Dynaudio Sound Meter app is available free from the Apple App store.
Using multiple subwoofers
By using carefully positioned multiple subwoofers it is possible to even out the different room-modes and thus
create a more coherent overall bass response in the room. It is worth experimenting with different locations around
the room for the additional subwoofers, even using the rear of the room. As adding subwoofers will not increase
the effect of room-modes, even adding a subwoofer without much care or thought to positioning is likely to help
even out room-modes. A simple place to start is by spacing multiple subwoofers equally across the front wall, as
this can help stop width modes from forming.
Installation 13