Anyone good with home audio setup? I'm trying to find the proper place to put my subwoofer for best sound. I've tried a few places in my room, but i get lots of dead spots and less than ideal sound at the primary listening area. But, if I walk into another room, the bass makes my eyes bleed

How can I find the sweet spot to place this thing? It seems to work great everywhere except where I need it to.

Probably doesn't help, but the rooms in my house are hardwood floor, and wood paneling.

[This message has been edited by Xanth (edited 02-21-2011).]

The easiest way I know of for normal human beings is to put its settings at a base line, then put the subwoofer where your head will be when listening. Then , move around the room putting your head in potential subwoofer locations until you find where it sounds smoothest/fullest. Then put the subwoofer there and go to your listening spot and it should sound about right. Then you can fine tune the settings.

You'll look kinda goofy crawling around but...who cares? It'll sound good in the end.

Honestly? Mine sits to the right of my couch, and sort of gets used as an end table..

My system sounds perfect to me, but I have Audyssey audio tuning enabled and configured for my setup..

As stated above.. That is one of the best ways, but you also want to keep the subwoofer out of sight.

The secret to a good home theater is not being able to pinpoint each speaker, including the sub.

With the exception of my rears (above the couch), I can not place a finger on where the sound is coming from when listening to 7.1 audio signals...
I can not pinpoint individual speakers at all.

I've heard about placing the sub where you sit before, was wondering if that really works. I'll give that a try and see if it at least improves my results.

Audyssey did a great job with the small speakers, and did a good job balancing the sub from where you sit. But it seems the sub has to be louder than it should be to work well in that particular area. Right now cranking the sub doesn't give much oomph, it all goes into other rooms in the house.

quote Originally posted by Xanth: I've heard about placing the sub where you sit before, was wondering if that really works. I'll give that a try and see if it at least improves my results. Audyssey did a great job with the small speakers, and did a good job balancing the sub from where you sit. But it seems the sub has to be louder than it should be to work well in that particular area. Right now cranking the sub doesn't give much oomph, it all goes into other rooms in the house.

Try a different sub position and retune...

I moved my sub three times before I was happy with it.

I also recently got my home theater PC to bitstream Blu-Ray Audio at 24MBps in 8 discreet channels... My receiver kicked to DTS-HD mode, and my subwoofer became infinitely more pronounced. I turned it down to half volume from nearly 3/4, and get a much smoother and better sound out of it.
As a matter of fact, it got the police called on me on Sunday night.

quote Originally posted by Xanth: Right now cranking the sub doesn't give much oomph, it all goes into other rooms in the house.

One thing to remember, if you point your sub at a wall or into a corner it usually will increase bass response. This comes at a expense as it can sound boomy and less controlled.

As to it going into other rooms in the house, a bass wave is a very long wave. It takes room to develope, so it's natural that it may sound louder in another room where the wave has had more space to develope. That's one reason pointing the sub at a wall or corner increases bass response, because the bass wave travels further having to hit and bounce off the wall before it reaches your ears. This same trick is used often in car audio also by placing the subs in the trunk firing towards the rear of the vehicle.

[This message has been edited by Khw (edited 02-21-2011).]

My understanding of subwoofers is that it doesn't matter where in the room you place them. But, according to this article, that might not be true and you can optimize the subwoofer's performance in your room:

Subwoofer Placement Guidelines
http://www.audioholics.com/...placement-guidelines

quote Originally posted by fierobear: My understanding of subwoofers is that it doesn't matter where in the room you place them.

This is a bit of a confusing topic..


While low frequencies are excessively difficult for humans to place a direction on, room placement DOES matter for overall sound level and accuracy. Within reason, you could place it anywhere in your room and your ears wont know what direction the sound is coming from, but sound quality will suffer with poor placement. Often times corner placement is louder but more boomy, etc.

quote Originally posted by Synthesis: I also recently got my home theater PC to bitstream Blu-Ray Audio at 24MBps in 8 discreet channels... My receiver kicked to DTS-HD mode, and my subwoofer became infinitely more pronounced. I turned it down to half volume from nearly 3/4, and get a much smoother and better sound out of it. As a matter of fact, it got the police called on me on Sunday night.

What did you have to do to get this to work? Does it depend on the sound card?

My BladeRunner DVD shows Dolby TrueHD on the back, but the receiver only goes into Dolby Digital mode even though it supports TrueHD. I'm using an onboard ATI HDMI audio, just getting it to work in Dolby digital and DTS was a bit of a hassle with drivers.

one of my favorite placements for my subwoofer was to strap it to the basement ceiling, right underneath where I sit.
a pair of 10" subs at 500w/channel
obviously had to WAY overpower it thru the floor. but - boy - was it awesome for bang bang movies!
all kinds of floor rumbling.
but - it made the basement sound like an assembly plant....

It all depends on the room layout and where your listeners will be. You are generally good if you place the subwoofer on the direct opposite wall from where you sitting. If the seating is in the middle of the room, you can place the subwoofer directly behind the listeners too.

With most people, it is a compromise between furnature layout and room layout. Figure out where it can possibly go and then pick the best one.

quote Originally posted by Khw: As to it going into other rooms in the house, a bass wave is a very long wave. It takes room to develope, so it's natural that it may sound louder in another room where the wave has had more space to develope.

Yep. For this reason, it's usually not good to have your subwoofer sitting right next to you, or to have the speaker facing you. If you have a front-firing subwoofer, aim it at a wall (but leave plenty of space between the speaker and the wall, so the sound can get out). If it's a down-firing subwoofer, place it across the room from you, preferrably near a corner. Just don't put it *in* the corner (i.e. snugged up against the walls). That will make the bass sound punchy. The subwoofer should be spaced a foot or two away from the walls. It also helps to have the subwoofer behind you, or flanking you, rather than directly in front.

quote Originally posted by Xanth: What did you have to do to get this to work? Does it depend on the sound card? My BladeRunner DVD shows Dolby TrueHD on the back, but the receiver only goes into Dolby Digital mode even though it supports TrueHD. I'm using an onboard ATI HDMI audio, just getting it to work in Dolby digital and DTS was a bit of a hassle with drivers.

As stated above by Doug, the onboard ATi isn't capable of Bitstreaming...

I originally had mine running off of the onboard ATi 4200 HDMI port, and the system would send audio using two channel PCM.
I added an ATi Radeon HD 5770 card (any of the 5000 series should work), which supports true 8 channel bitstreaming.
When I did that, and checked the supported audio, I went from two or three supported formats with 2 channel PCM to approximately 10 supported formats from the HTPC to the receiver. The difference has been outstanding.

On the sbuwoofer note, turning the subwoofer facing backwards and putting it into a large closet behind the screen made a huge difference. Seems to have a really nice balance now, going to re-run the calibration and see if it improves further.

I'll look at those Radeon 5000s, seems they're not very expensive to get what I need. Maybe with taxes upgrade the whole thing so I could play some games on it if I felt the urge