Subwoofer advice often starts with the phrase “subwoofer placement is critical”, and in our experience, this is absolutely true. So how do you figure out the best location? See below:
Experiment
Our subwoofers sound better than most, and this is before factoring in the value to cost ratio. But if you want to take your low-frequency experience a few notches higher, you will need to experiment. Play a bass-heavy track or scene that you are familiar with and place your subwoofer in the various locations that are available. That can take a while because the differences will be immediate in some locations and almost the same in others. It is perfectly ok to live the subwoofer in a single location for a week or so and doing the same in another location, to really understand which sounds best to you.
Crawl
If you are in a dedicated space or can place your subwoofer in several different locations, you should try The Subwoofer Crawl. Basically, place your subwoofer in the main listening position. Then get your ears at the same height as the subwoofer on the floor and crawl around until the bass sounds the best to your ear.
This is a great quick and dirty way to find the best location for a single subwoofer in your room, relative to the main listening position.
Calibrate
After finding optimal placement, there will still be room modes in your listening space. Calibration software can go a long way in reducing room modes. Arc Genesis and Dirac Live are particularly good.
