Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

Near-field listening with a sub is the driver one foot from your ears -- otherwise the room has a major effect

The subwoofer should be located near one of the main speakers, or between them, to integrate well with them.

If this is impossible, a subwoofer will usually sound better located closer to your ears than the main speakers (rather than further away).

My speakers are 4 feet from my ears and my sub is behind the left speaker. The bass is much different than placing the sub in the corner -- the driver has to stroke much more to generate the same SPL -- but the bass peaks and troughs are not as severe = usually a good trade off if you have subwoofer driver displacement to spare.

If your speakers are placed far from walls, and also located close to your ears, then that's where your subwoofer should be too.

A "middle-of-the-room subwoofer position will excite most room resonances much less then a corner subwoofer ... but any subwoofer on the floor will fully excite the floor-to-ceiling standing wave that will cause a bass peak unless the listeners ears are close to halfway between the floor and ceiling (not likely) ... or the sub's range doesn't reach that frequency (71Hz. for an 8 foot ceiling -- lower frequencies for taller ceilings).

One bass peak can be very annoying if the rest of the bass sounds pretty good. But the floor-to ceiling standing wave peak is easily eliminated with a parametric EQ. One EQ setting works well for all listeners whose ears are located a similar distance from the floor.

Placed in a corner, a sub will excite all room resonances to the maximum = loudest bass but most uneven bass possible (may not sound as bad as it measures if the room has good geometry (well-spaced standing wave frequencies = no room dimensions are multiples of each other).
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Richard BassNut Greene
Subjective Audiophile 2007


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  • Near-field listening with a sub is the driver one foot from your ears -- otherwise the room has a major effect - Richard BassNut Greene 07:32:40 03/30/07 (0)


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