Down Firing subwoofer ?

Question

Haha whats the positives and negitives about a down firing subwoofer (it like points at the ground)

Answer 1

It used to be that down firing subs produced more bass while front firing subs were tighter. Subwoofer designs have progressed to the point that front firing subs are more potent than they were and downfiring subs are tighter than they were. Since low bass is non directional (you can't tell where it originates from) there are no longer any positives or negatives anymore about down firing subs. The only consideration is the quality of the sub whatever its design.

Answer 2

There are two things being mixed up here. It is well established that direction of bass is not detected by the ear. If directionality were the only issue, it wouldn't matter where you placed a subwoofer. That leads some to believe that subwoofer placement is not important; in fact, subwoofer placement in a room is very critical, even more important than the other speakers. This is because the sound wavelengths emitted by the sub are closer to the room dimensions, and "nodes" of reinforcement and cancellation will occur, and it is almost impossible to find a single subwoofer placement that will give uniform response for several seating postions. You can adjust the placement for one "sweet spot", but other places will suffer.

Some people believe that multiple subwoofers can overcome that problem, and that may well be so, but locating 2 speakers is 4x as hard as locating 1!

There is no simple answer, the general rule is to avoid symmetric locations (center points of walls). Corner placement will give the loudest sound, but may be the most non-uniform; a little offset from the corner is best.

That being said, none of this has anything to do with down-firing or side-firing; both designs can work well, and it won't help the placement problem at all.

Answer 3

Subwoofer acoustics are ... different from those of direct-radiator speakers. In truth - you get more volume of sound from a subwoofer via wall-reflections. Properly placing a sub near the corner of the 2 longest un-broken walls (2/5 or 1/3 in from the corner) is more important than selecting a down or side fire design. Making sure the wall reflections produce smooth, tight bass at your main seat is a factor of POSITION, not down vs side fire. It may surprise you but a subwoofer has a lot in common with a room fan. The design and goal of both is to create a wave of air moving through a room. A box fan will sound and work better with a big tile under it as opposed to carpet. But in truth the difference is very small.

Answer 4

The guy above me makes some good points, but he's overcomplicating it. Bass waves (or subsonic waves) are very large and take a long time to mature, so when placing your subwoofer you want to put it in a spot that the wave it up, not down... what that means is that when positioning a sub, there will be spots where the bass seems less, but a foot forward or a foot back, it's booming.... An old installer trick is to put your sub in your listening spot, then crawl around the room until you find the spot where it sounds best, then put your sub there.

Of course, you can also get a room equalizer or have a professional come in.

Answer 5

It doesn't matter how the sub is attached to the enclosure as long as it does the job it is supposed to do.A lot of wrong information is given out about sub woofers, such as : bass isn't directional,you only need one sub woofer,or you can put it anywhere. Let's set the record strait:BASS IS DIRECTIONAL IN A ROOM.-THE ROOM CAUSES IT TO BE DIRECTIONAL. So ,placement is important so that the bass blends with the rest of the music.put the woofer in the back of the room and you will get a boomy sound from the back of the room.

To integrate sub woofers properly into a system you must place the woofer at the same end of the room as the main speakers .To make the bass less directional and blend better you need to cross it over(or transition to the woofer) at a low frequency and ideally use a pair of sub woofers.(only the very lowest frequencies are not directional) Use proper amplification on the sub woofers .Like everything else in audio,quality is more important than quantity.Choose the clearer sub over the bigger sub woofer .If these rules are followed,the addition of a sub woofer (s) will add greatly to the enjoyment of your system.If these rules are broken,you'll spend good money and make your system sound worse.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION : A 20 HZ sound wave is approx. 56 feet long at sea level.Half a wavelength will allow you to hear it,therefore unless your room is 28 feet long in one direction you will not hear that note properly. A 30 HZ sound wave is about 38 feet long so unless your room is 19 feet long(half the wavelength) in any direction you will not hear the note properly.The laws of physics are against you.That is why i believe subs are more trouble than they are worth.If your normal bass speakers go down to say 40 HZ,that really is low enough.If your room is much smaller than 19 feet you will have standing waves where the sound would be nothing like it should be and will be very uncomfortable .


Audio video enthusiasts take note :
Now before you give me the" thumbs down" and start critising me do your homework about the interaction of sound waves in a room.You might learn something.