What’s the ideal placement for sub woofers in a room?

Last week a very good question was sent in for me to answer on our weekly Google Hangout. The person in question had 6 sub-woofers in their room and was asking about ideal placement because he was lacking low end. Well the short answer is that if you have six subwoofers and you’re lacking low-end, I think you need to check and make sure they’re all producing energy because I’ve never heard of such a situation. Obviously this person likes low-end because he has so many subwoofers. But putting that much low-frequency energy devices in a room is not good sound quality, it’s not good practice. Now that said, there is an optimum balance between the number of subwoofers you need in the room versus the room volume.

What is that number? Well it varies, it varies on usage if it’s two-channel or home theater. With home theater usually you want a little bit more low-frequency-energy producing devices but that’s all they are. They’re energy-producing devices, low-frequency producing devices, don’t think of them as subwoofers. So where are these energy-producing devices going to fit in our room? Okay, what is the width? What is the height? What is the length? Then we have to look at what’s the average pressure levels you listen to music at, that you watch movies at. So you have to take all these variables into consideration.

Now, positioning. You’re trying to pressurize the room equally so you have to position these in ways that pressurize the room equally and that gets into a little bit more complicated stuff and we have software that can help you do that. If you have three subwoofers, you’re probably going to have one on each end and one in the middle. Try to keep them out of the corners, I know that’s kind of a popular place but putting them in the corners generates kind of an artificial sound because the reinforcement that you get from the room corner is you know an added amount of energy to what the speakers are producing, but it’s room sound plus speaker sound, so you want to try to stay away from that.

I can help you find the correct speakers’ position in your room if you send me your dimensions and volume but sometimes they’ll be off the floor a bit, sometimes they’ll be on the floor, sometimes they’ll be really five-feet off the floor. So it just depends on the room volume and size and well how loud you like to listen to it at.

In Summary

So I hope that helps you. If you have any questions at any time I am always on hand to help answer them. Leave them in the comments section or email me at info@acousticfields.com. If you would like to learn more about room acoustics please sign up for my free videos and ebook by joining the mailing list here. I send room tuning tips and things for you to test in your room every Wednesday. They are easy to follow and really help you enjoy more of your music. And if you would like your room acoustic issues analysed for free by me then please fill in the form here and I will be happy to take a look for you.

Thanks and speak soon
Dennis