Home Theater Subwoofer Placement?

Question

My entire system is inside a cabinet built into the wall. I have two options for the powered subwoofer - (1) to place it on the floor outside the cabinet. This requires a wire to be drawn out from the cabinet and doesn't look good. (2) to place it on top of the cabinet against the wall. This looks far better, but does it compromise the bass since it is coming from the top rather than from the floor?

Answer 1

Well, subwoofer placement is not nearly as critical as for other speakers since bass is non directional, but the general guideline is to test first by putting the sub where you will listen from then put your ear where you are thinking of putting the sub. If it sound strong and full, it's OK to put the sub there.

No theoretical reason not to put the sub up high (although normal practise is to put near a boundary of two walls or a wall and the floor since that enhances bass).

Bottom line ... give that a try (and use the trick I described).

On the other hand, if your preferred location doesn't work well, it shouldn't be too difficult to hide the wire if you put the sub somewhere else in the room. Home Depot (and others) have plastic channel that sticks to the baseboard (for example) and enclose the wire. I used it in my HT and you have to look closely to notice it.

Answer 2

Hi.All loudspeakers are extraordinarily room dependant,and that includes Subwoofers.Since every room is different,a speaker simply cannot be designed to work predictably in every room.The larger your listening room,the more bass your speakers will need to produce to properly load that space and keep the bass in balance with the higher frequencies .The very low bass frequencies will be affected by things such as furnishings,window treatments,floor ceiling and wall surfaces,room shape ,building construction methods and materials and of course the speakers own dispersion pattern.What this means is there is no way to predict how a subwoofer will sound until you try as many different positions as possible .Two subwoofers are easier to locate because the bass will be in stereo and fill the room more accurately.Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Put it on the floor and hide the wires. better performance.