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12 Dynaudio Sub 250
Positioning the subwoofer
Although it is often said that the location of a subwoofer in a listening room is not
critical (as the human ear can not locate direction at very low frequencies), we
recommend that you choose its position carefully. Thus the subwoofer can integrate
seamlessly with the other speakers in the system and interact correctly with the room
acoustics.
All of the following should be taken as rough guidelines; bass response in general is
very dependent on the acoustics of the listening environment. Finding the best
position often involves a lot of trial-and-error experimentation. Always trust your ears,
even if the position of the subwoofer seemingly goes against the guidelines.
Contradictory as it may seem, good integration of subwoofers has been achieved
when one isn’t aware that a subwoofer is present at all in the system, yet performance
involves fast, deep and solid bass without sounding stressed, even at loud levels.
Choose adequate music material
When experimenting to find the optimal location, use a couple of music tracks with
repetitive bass across a large spectrum. The tracks should be sufficiently different
from each other and each should cover a wide bass-range. Musical instruments, such
as a double-bass, bass guitar, church organ, etc. cover a wide spectrum in the bass
region and are therefore very suitable. Using non-music (such as action movies)
material to position and adjust the subwoofer with, may lead to spectacular results
with such material but almost always it will result in overblown and excessive bass
when playing music with the same setting.
Impact of room-modes
Every listening environment will have specific “room-modes”, whereby in some
specific locations in the room and at particular frequencies, the bass may be too much
or too lean. This effect will be stronger in square and “shoe-box” shaped rooms. With
a single subwoofer, the better position for the subwoofer relative to the listening
position will be the one where bass is perceived to be neither too much nor too lean
at any given frequency.
X Avoid placing the subwoofer at 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 of either the length or width of the
room as at these locations the room-modes are likely to be strongest (the dashed
lines in the figure)
Note: Always position subwoofers at least 1 mtr/3 ft away from a CRT television as
the magnetic field emanating from the subwoofer may otherwise distort the
picture. If you see discoloration on the television screen, try moving the
subwoofer and other speakers close by away from the television.
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Listening Room