60°
Subwoofer
60°
Subwoofer
60°
Subwoofer
horizontally and vertically. If you prefer the surround effect to be more
diffused rather than pinpointed, aiming the speakers somewhat away from
your ears probably will be more satisfying. You may want even to place them
to reflect their sound off the sides or rear of you room rather than have them
radiate toward you. Side-wall positioning, slightly behind you as specified in
our Quick Start tips, is preferable to most listeners, but rear-wall placement
can work well-especially for bouncing the sound off the side walls.
C. Subwoofer
There is no argument among audiophiles that the loudest bass output from a
subwoofer comes from corner placement. The natural megaphone-like flaring
outward of walls from a room corner focuses low frequencies—giving them no
place to go but toward you. It may be too much bass for your room or (more
particularly) your favorite listening spot in the room, but unless you are seated
in a “null” spot, where sound from the sub is cancelled or diminished by out-of
phase reflections from elsewhere, there should be plenty of bass from corner
placement.
If you are seated in such a null spot, your only real choices are generally to
move either the subwoofer or your listening position until bass returns to the
point that satisfies. Cranking up the level control almost certainly won’t help
much. But flipping the phase control 180 degrees sometimes may make a
difference, especially if the null is a product of cancellations caused by
interaction with low frequencies from your main speakers.
If you are in the opposite sort of situation, where direct and reflected bass
waves converge in phase and produce a strong peak at your listening
location, you can—if you like—deal with that both with changes in placement
or in the position of your sub’s level control (or, less likely but possible, the
crossover frequency chosen). We say “if you like” because there is no such
thing as too much bass for some listeners, and we don’t want to be dogmatic.
You are definitely the one who has to be pleased, unless your Significant
Other chimes in to the contrary. As you go outward from the corner along one
wall or another, the general consensus (with which we tend to agree) is that
while bass output diminishes somewhat, it also becomes more uniform
throughout the room, with fewer of the “standing waves” that produce peaks
and nulls at various points.
Chances are things won’t be so simple, so the best method for positioning a
subwoofer, although a rather undignified-looking one, is to put the subwoofer
in your listening chair, then play music with lots of bass through the system
6
Most bass output; least
even bass response
Moderate bass output;
more even bass response
Lowest bass output;
most even bass response
