Subwoofer location

Remove all ads!

My step-father talked me into buying 5.1 set when we were out shopping. I've been using an old JVC stereo so far that I intend to keep as an alternative e.g. for listening to the music or basically whenever the good stereo seems to beat the surround toy. As much as I love nice sound, I have limited imagination and hearing when it comes to placing things (I probably wouldn't be able to tell wrong placement from an inherent limitation of the speaker set). For reference, the sub is 140 W. So:

1. If I place big buzz on the floor, will my neighbours' ceiling rock (block of flats)?

2. What about night time when people want silence and ambient is low?

3. If I place it on some rug, don't I defeat the purpose?

2. If I place it under my LCD monitor (convenient replacement the two books and a box needed because the leg is short) and thus right next to the central speaker, will I be liable to kill either the monitor or the surround quality?

Thanks!

 

Put it on the floor near the center of your speaker arrangement for best results. Do not put it on a table or speaker shelf, and don't put it next to or under the monitor. Also, make sure it is seated firmly on the floor (e.g no uneven surfaces on which it might wobble).

 

Chev - Generally, you won't be able to tell from where the low frequency is being projected, (depending on the crossover setting. See below *) but placement is crucial and you can experiment a bit with your own room acoustics for best placement. If it is a front firing sub, your carpet will not matter. However, if it fires downwards than you must have at least several inches of clearance for the sub to project out into the room and the carpet does not dampen the sound. Usually it comes with carpet spikes for this purpose, unless it has fairly tall feet on its bottom.

Just as crucial will be setting up the sub to work with your receiver. If your receiver/sub has an LFE setting it is important that it is set correctly and that the crossover frequency is set properly in the setup menu of your receiver:

http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/g...-subwoofer-lfe-crossover-for-best-performance

 

Thanks! I first started with sub on the left side of my monitor and I wasn't thrilled. Wonder if this is going to change when I do it the right way. All I have in my head right now is migraine, as opposed to when listening to my JVC stereo.

To make things worse, it turns out my onboard Soundmax won't give EAX in Win7 and I've already given my old Audigy away (X-Fi... money doesn't grow on trees). Wonder if there's a way of pulling it off without violating Alchemy EULA (if technically doable first of all). Darn. If I had known, I wouldn't have bothered.

EDIT: Apparently, there already is an Alchemy driver supplied via Asus. Except Windows 7 has me forced to play Warcraft 3 in OpenGL because it won't start under DX. Wonder if I'll still be able to get any EAX or, well, any surround sound in War3....

EDIT2: Well, at least there's an excuse to get X-Fi. 1. Do I want the USB external Surround thing or a proper Titanium?

 

I eco what BTA said.

However, my vote would be that you somehow mount it to the bottom of your seat, so you can literately feel the bass.

 

Ouch, that's pretty extreme.

So far I've also tried plugging the stereo in as the front speakers and the rest as everything except front, so I supposedly have a 7.1 now. Wonder what this is going to sound like in a game. For now, at least I can listen to the music all right.

 

With a 5.1 set I would choose for the pci-e version. For a laptop the usb is good.

I have an Creative pci-e titanium with an gigaworks g500

Beware of the windows 7 driver update for this card, if you get it. It gave me many problems. the driver from creative works fine.

Be sure to check out the competition with the Asus Xonar cards.

 

i currently have the x-fi extremegamer sound card with the logitech x-530 5.1 speakers and it sounds good to me. well my room isnt really that large.