[bigshot]

Bass isn't directiona and it flows along the floor to fill a room like waterl, so you have a lot more leeway placing a sub than a main. However, bass reacts more with room shape and reflections, so that is what you focus on. In general the stock diagrams of the triangle of listening position and mains put the sub a little to the right or left of one of the mains on the floor toed towards the open area of the room. That works in most cases, unless your furniture makes that difficult.

 

[bfreedma]

Bass isn't directiona and it flows along the floor to fill a room like waterl, so you have a lot more leeway placing a sub than a main. However, bass reacts more with room shape and reflections, so that is what you focus on. In general the stock diagrams of the triangle of listening position and mains put the sub a little to the right or left of one of the mains on the floor toed towards the open area of the room. That works in most cases, unless your furniture makes that difficult.

Diagrams suggesting that the best location for a subwoofer is just to the left or right of the mains are not generally correct. As you stated previously, bass (typically below 80hz for most) is directionless, so where your sub cone points at is largely irrelevant.

The best location for your sub is going to be quite different in each room/room configuration. Finding the optimal location requires measurements. If you can't measure, put the sub on the chair/sofa and do the "sub crawl" by moving around the room near ground level. Where the bass sounds best on your crawl is the almost always the optimal location for your sub.

Picking a place and plopping the sub down there is almost always suboptimal.

 

[bigshot]

The problem is furniture placement. If the area between the listener and the mains is clear, the spot just to one side of the mains works great. But a lot of people have coffee tables.

 

[bfreedma]

The problem is furniture placement. If the area between the listener and the mains is clear, the spot just to one side of the mains works great. But a lot of people have coffee tables.

Being omnidirectional and long wavelength, bass from a subwoofer is far less impacted by in room objects than you seem to think. A coffee table would be audibly meaningless when discussing wavelengths of this magnitude.

I've yet to measure a room where furniture had more negative impact on a sub than placing it in the optimal location had positive impact.

 

[bigshot]

The coffee table is usually about 4 feet in front of the mains and it sets up a huge flat obstacle between the listener and the sub on the floor. I ditched mine because it was messing with both the mains and the sub. The floor between the speakers and listening position is important for a couple of different reasons. Corners of the room are worse though.

 

[bfreedma]

The coffee table is usually about 4 feet in front of the mains and it sets up a huge flat obstacle between the listener and the sub on the floor. I ditched mine because it was messing with both the mains and the sub. The floor between the speakers and listening position is important for a couple of different reasons. Corners of the room are worse though.

Agree that the coffee table would impact the mains, but it won’t have any significant impact on the sub. Simply measure with and without the table to see how little.

Given the length of the sound waves produced by the subwoofer, unless the table is solid concrete, impact will be negligible as it isn’t going to be close to 1/4 wavelength in vertical thickness, which is where significant bass attenuation begins. Same reason bass traps and room treatments are usually 1-2 feet thick if they’re going to be effective.

The primary goal of sub location is avoiding room nulls as they can’t be overpowered or eqed out of. Limiting oneself to placements next to the speakers is unlikely to produce the best in room bass response. Unless response at the MLP is measured from multiple potential sub locations, it’s throwing darts blindfolded.

 

[71 dB]

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