Ideas on Where to place my sub? drawing included

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My room is almost exactly the same orientation as his. Balcony to one side, hallway perpendicular to the other side and open space (dining area) just beyond it. As for the issue with magnetically shielded speakers... The typical Dolby Digital arrangement does allow for flexibility in terms of the distance of each speaker from the listener and/or display. That is to say that if he needs to move the left and right fronts out further and the sub a bit further, should be just fine.


It's a common misconception that putting a subwoofer nearer to the listener equals better performance of LFE. Also, it's not like I'm using a 2500-watt Sunfire sub. That's a 250-watt 10" KEF sub, front-ported... in a 12' x 18' living room. In fact, the sub is so damned loud in that space I have the input gain set to about 1/2 and the output gain on the LFE channel of the receiver set to -11dB, and it still delivers rumbling bass that can be felt throughout my two-bedroom apartment. I'm not worried about the complaints... the apartments are concrete separated. I'm just not into completely drowning out all the full range channels with a 100dB burst every time someone slams a car door shut.


The original poster has a 350-watt 12" sub. Certainly capable of farther dispersion of low frequency effects than mine.


Putting the sub next to the couch is going to result in absorption and deflection that will inhibit the ability of the sub to fill the room with low-frequency effects. Ideally, you don't want the LFE to sound as though it's noticeably separate from the rest of the environmental sound in a mix.


Unless you've got a horrendously underpowered subwoofer this arrangement should be optimal. And I'm telling you this as someone who engineers certified Dolby Digital content.


If the problem is that the couch is too far from the sub, don't move the sub nearer to the couch, move the couch nearer to the display and rearrange the speakers accordingly.

Bob, while I don't disagree that coloration is occurring... everything you do with a sound source will affect how it is perceived one way or another. Unless you're living in an anechoic chamber, there will be compromises. The real question is which methods produce the least significant and least noticeable effects given what you have to work with.


Yes, throwing money at the problem is one way to do it... One can always throw money at a problem. Screen image not detailed enough? Ok, buy a $25,000 Runco HD projector... Still not good enough? Ok, buy a 35mm theatrical projector and pay THX hundreds of thousands of dollars to design your living room.


But all else being equal, assuming one is stuck with the equipment they have... what then?


That being said, the last place I would look for an objective, technical analysis of the situation is on the web site of a company trying to sell what they claim is the solution to that alleged problem. Even if the source cited is a third party consumer magazine (which Home Theater Journal is, it's not a science/engineering journal), manufacturers tend to pick and choose which papers support their arguments and ignore the ones that don't.


That isn't to say that elevating the subwoofer off the floor isn't useful, or that bass traps aren't useful. That's simply me saying that even for arguments I support, I tend to be very particular about having a cogent scientific basis for the argument and usually one finds such arguments in peer-reviewed science/engineering journals... not audio/videophile magazines.

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You use a lot of buzz words in your explanation above, but they don't really make sense and aren't really accurate. You talk about dispersion as if a sub was not essentially an omnidirectional source, which it is.


You then state that "It's a common misconception that putting a subwoofer nearer to the listener equals better performance of LFE", but then give no evidence of how this is a misconception. Near-field listening DOES reduce room artifacts, if you want to argue against that, you would pretty much be arguing against every acoustical and recording engineer in the land.... Furthermore, even in a closed space like a residential interior, there is still a drop-off in level vs distance -- closer sub placement equals louder levels.


The couch is not going to inhibit the subs "dispersion" into the room. As long as the sub is x-over properly and is properly engineered and integrated with the mains, there is no reason a near-field location at the side of the couch wouldn't work very well.


BTW, if you read my initial post, I clearly stated to try the couch first, and if that WAS localizable, then try to the right of the right speaker.