Sub Placement Problem

[Snap]

Maybe you all can offer some ideas. And I am praying that SOME ONE out there has had to put the sub behind the seating area! ops: and I hope that they can give me some feed back. Here are the facts.

The Room that this Theater is in has NO side walls. You are looking at front and back walls only! :cry: (The sides of the den are halls and doorways!) So we are talking a 5.1 System. Here is where it gets NUTS. The entertainment system (NEW) and front towers TAKE THE WHOLE WALL! 8O The ONLY place to put the sub is behind the sofa on the back wall. 8O The wiring is no problem. The problem I have is how in the world do I tune it? More importantly is it even worth the trouble? Is it going to sound terrible? I can pull more wire, and I have the wall plates installed already for the speakers. But now, instead of the sub being 11 feet away from the person, it is now 2! :E AND IT IS BEHIND US! 8O

Now if it was some one else I would tell them, "do not get that big of an entertainment system". Problem I have is, it's my wife that bought the entertainment center! :lol: ( I tried Sanus, I tried Salamander..... no luck! It was shot down by the Living Room Sergeant Major! )

aaahhhh At least the new stuff looks really classy! Any ideas fire them my way! Thanks ya'll

System Equip: Denon 3805, Denon 2910, 55 inch Sony Grand Wega RPLCD, Earthquake Speakers and Sub. Dish Sat TV

[Adz]

I have my sub in the back of the room against the wall about six feet behind the couch. I played around with placement, first directly behind the sweetspot and now currently in the corner. I wouldn't put it anywhere else. For HT its the best placement in my room for sure. The sub rocks the couch like I'm on a rollercoaster and it doesn't cloud the mids and highs coming from across the front three speakers.

[Snap]

Thanks Adz

Adz,
Thanks I was really diggin my sound I have now, and I was really worried about it changing a bunch with the sub movment. This is definatly encouraging! :T

[Adz]

Well no side walls can definitely create some issues with sub placement, but I think you will like putting your Earthquake sub right up against the back wall firing directly into the middle of your sofa (behind the sweetspot) -- I'm assuming you have a decent amount of space between the wall and the sofa. You may like it soooo much that you'll get another one like I did.

[Snap]

hmm another sub!

Adz,
I HOPE I don't like it that much With the Money that I dropped in the last 2 weeks on this system, moma will be...... :evil: But maybe later on I can get it! :B If I am really nice! 8)
I will let you know how it turns out. I'll do my wire-pulling this weekend, and set it up next week! Thanks for the tip! :T

[raider]

sub placement

Hey snap!i have a simular situation in my system where i have an open archway to the kitchen on on side and a set of doors to the deck on the other side and what i did is placed one sub adjacent to the sofa and the 2nd sub at the opposit corner of the room and the outcome is nothing short of breathtaking :T
By the way,the sub by the sofa is 180 deg out of phase with the system and it works well in this app.You will have to play around with the phase adj to max the bass :W
Good luck :B

[Gordon Moore]

To add to what Raider has said:
Subs don't need to be facing you to be effective.
Behind or in front won't likely make a difference as true sub frequencies are not localized (you shouldn't be able to tell where it's coming from) unlike the upper register (that's why your towers usually need a slight toe-in to give you that sweet spot sound effect). The Waveform created by sub freq's are long and lower in amplitude (the up and down of a wave) and travel far. Tweeters spew out a waveform that is tight fast and doesn't travel as far.

The best way to find out where your sub sounds best is to place it where you sit and then play something bassy with 20 or 25 Hz or lower sections....crawl around and see where it gets the most impact (bass sounds clean, tight, has lots of punch...not muddy sounding). That's where the sub "should" go. However, sometimes that spot isn't ideal so you compromise. It'll kill a morning on a Saturday....but it's well worth it.

Good luck.

[Snap]

Sweet!

The best way to find out where your sub sounds best is to place it where you sit and then play something bassy with 20 or 25 Hz or lower sections....crawl around and see where it gets the most impact (bass sounds clean, tight, has lots of punch...not muddy sounding). That's where the sub "should" go.

That is one of the coolest ideas I have heard! :T :T I am going to try it. If it works for me it will be a whole lot better than "Play the CD, move the sub, Play the CD move the sub......over and over! :roll:

Raider thanks for the reminder about the 180. Totally forgot about that! ops: Thanks!

This will be fun. I have done HTS with the sub on the side, or HTS with the sub on the front, but never at the rear. I will definatly let you all know what it sound like. Hopfully put some pix to go with it.

I can't wait to break out the SMAART live a few good CD's and go to tweeking! :T

[joostenjohn60]

Just to add my 2 cents worth my subs are now at the rear of the room just behind the lounge. I at running duel subs with 2 SV-10's in each with each sub driver being driven by half of a Yamaha Pro power amp. I now have 1400 watts on the subs and I really like the sound of where they are. A bit of mucking around with phasing but it works quite well . I did this for space reasons as well. If you can use a cd with a low frequency sweep you should be able to locate any waywood frequencies and deal with them accordingly.

[Snap]

I am assuming that you are using something to curb the bad freqs IE BFD or a DBX or Parametric EQ for the sub right??

[Kingdaddy]

I've had subs behind me and I didn’t like the effect, unless they are crossed very low 60Hz I can usually tell they are behind me. There is always other options though, do you have any attic space above the ceiling? If so then a IB in the attic would be a good choice, a couple of 12" in a manifold or better yet some 15's or 18's would slay any box sub or subs on the market. Just a thought though, in case you like to go the DIY route. Also if you’re into modifying and are good with wood, you could modify your entertainment cabinet to house the sub in it.