Following on from my blog on “What is a subwoofer?”, I thought that the next helpful post would be to provide some information on where the subwoofer should be placed in your room.
A very simplistic method that has been suggested for many years is to place the subwoofer on the seat where most listening will take place. The next step is to walk around the room to find the position where the bass sounds most suitable i.e. at its best. The position chosen is where the subwoofer ‘should’ be placed. However, in most instances this is usually the least practical place to put it e.g. middle of the room or in front of the AV cabinet!
So a compromise has to be made to integrate the subwoofer into the system with the other speakers in your surround set up as well as the room aesthetics. This may leave you with a less than satisfactory performance than was expected. A very good report on placement of one or more subwoofers has been written by Ingvar Ohman which will hopefully explain integration for you – http://www.sonicdesign.se/subplace.html
However don’t despair if it’s starting to look a bit too technical! Electronic solutions are available in the form of sound equalizers that concentrate on the room correction element of your subwoofer in its listening environment. Here are a couple of examples:
![Prod_detail_SMS_remote_mic_[1]](http://blog.kenthomecinema.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Prod_detail_SMS_remote_mic_11-300x195.jpg "Prod_detail_SMS_remote_mic_[1]")
These clever box of tricks are placed between the Amplifier/Receiver and the subwoofer and after a bit of effort on your behalf using the microphone provided to set it all up, you can let it process out all of the anomalies in your room, to create a coherent soundstage, with the other speakers in your system. Once set up you just let the processor do its thing, again and again constantly ensuring your system has great bass and integration.
Here are a couple of reviews of the SVS AS-EQ1 that should help understand the role an equalizers can play, to further improve a surround sound system you already have or intend purchasing.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/subwoofers/993424-svs-eq1-subwoofer-eq-end-user-review.html
http://www.avforums.com/reviews/SVS-AS-EQ1-SubEQ-Review.html
