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HELP - Subwoofer placement

Hello everyone.

I have recently decided to experiment with a subwoofer for my system (mainly audio, little HT) and dug out my old Definitive Technology SUB1000 from my now retired HT system. My room has a quite inconvenient L-shape with ver few options for speaker placement. I have used my kid’s drawing program to describe it as best as I could below where my two ELAC Navis ARB-51 active bookshelf speakers are the red squares (too far apart but little I can do about it, also for wife-acceptance reasons). The sub is currently in the purple square and I sit in the black L on my corner sofa. Grey squares are other potential placement options. The big brown rectangle is a massive brick fireplace. I forgot to draw a large cabinet sitting directly left of the sub in the guest dining area of my room (ie no man’s land).

Considering the improved SQ despite (i) potentially poor current placement/tuning and (ii) decidedly poor sub quality (much more of a big HT boomer), I have now just bought a used REL T7 (1st gen) which I will be getting next week.

Questions I have are:

1. If using one sub only, where would you put it?

2. If using two subs, would you use the two grey positions or right grey and purple? I read that opposing “corners” can be helpful to get rid of nodes

3. Do you see a lot of value in adding a second decent sub (thinking REL T5 to sit in the right, closed off area with the T7 to power through the more open space on the left)? IMO keeping the DefTech sub will only negatively affect the SQ of the T7.

My art

Many thanks already for your views. Jokes about my drawing abilities of course welcome! 🤣

laimac
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 

OP the Arrays or swarms can use cabinets as small as .75cf. 4 small front firing or even ported cabinets will amaze you. BTW you can hide a .75-1.0cf box pretty easy. They are small and very effective.

James Romeyn was hooked up with VMPS for over 25 years the company closed and of course the staff moved on. He was a huge promoter of Class Ds in the very early days to with Hypex 400 modules too. There are a lot of them still out there made by his hand...

DEBRA Distributed Enhanced Bass Reflex Array - James ...

https://jamesromeyn.com › audiokinesis-speaker-models

DEBRA is an AudioKinesis licensed clone of AK Swarm HERE. DEBRA cabinets are wider and shallower, and comprise a different panel material.

I’m not affiliated with any of them in any way, neither is the rabbit (Junior) or the dog (Bubs).

Regards

wlutke
716 posts
 

I use just one REL sub and found that where it sounds best isn’t as simple as by the couch or where it can be felt through your butt.  A difference of two feet or four inches from the wall or which way the cone faces makes the listening area devoid of bass or the response lumpy or even moves the bass to the next room.  Or it can deliver the goods when right.  Experiment.  Inches matter.

jrpnde
271 posts
 

The use and placement of a sub(s) has to be one of the most discussed topics in this forum. Placement, room acoustics, and a lot of other factors come into play. The brand and model of the sub have some importance but not as much as other things. Millercarbon offers good advice. I have posted this link many times. Whether just getting into the use of subs or not, it is a very useful source of info...if you have the patience to read it.

Good Luck.......

 http://www.soundoctor.com/whitepapers/subs.htm

 

 

henry53's avatar
henry53
280 posts
 

I use 2 DefTech Supercube 4000's, they are good for music very quick.  I tried 2 x SVS for lots more money but no noticeable difference. I mount them on bookshelf speaker stands for a much better balance than on the floor. You can feel them slightly and evenly more than hear them, I set one at 40Hz / 23 volume and one at 80Hz/ 26 volume , both about 0.5 meters from side walls and 1 m into the room. Mine is a very difficult and quite small 3.3 x 4.5 m room.

cakyol's avatar
cakyol
940 posts
 

First, place the subs where you would sit to listen. Then move around the room to the positions which sound the best to you. Then move the subs to those positions. They will now sound exactly how you liked them at your listening positions. 

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