# Subwoofer Positioning issues



## ChadS99SVT (Apr 13, 2013)

Hey Guys.

I bought a Klipsch SW-450 sub for my house. I am having issues with it wanting to shake down the entire side of the house it's on, rather than provide clean crisp bass. There is lots of interior walls and small rooms near the subwoofer (laundrey, halfbath)

It's located in a somewhat small foot printed nook but has lots of headspace. main floor so basement is underneath but the back wall that the port fires into is an exterior wall.

Is a downfiring sub rear port a bad idea in this case? later tonight I'm going to try and fit it in an identical nook on the otherside of the living room that has two exterior walls supporting it. I'm hoping the rigidity there will help.

I can get pictures later if needed. let me know what other info you guys might need.

thanks.


----------



## 94VG30DE (Nov 28, 2007)

Where is it in the "nook"? In the corner? 
There's a lot of info on subwoofer positioning on room over at diyaudio (and many other places). I will try to dig some up sometime this week. 

Short suggestion is to pull it out of the corner. My suggestion is 1/3rd of the way into the room, roughly behind the TV probably (if your TV is centered).


----------



## ChadS99SVT (Apr 13, 2013)

94VG30DE said:


> Where is it in the "nook"? In the corner?
> There's a lot of info on subwoofer positioning on room over at diyaudio (and many other places). I will try to dig some up sometime this week.
> 
> Short suggestion is to pull it out of the corner. My suggestion is 1/3rd of the way into the room, roughly behind the TV probably (if your TV is centered).


Well the house has those stupid "built in" shelves/nooks cutouts that are formed with drywall. it's hard to describe. They basically dictate where you can place things like your TV audio equipment etc. There are two "nooks" that are on each side of the living room that are maybe 3'x3'4'tall. seems like perfect placement for a subwoofer, however, I'm thinking they are way to small for this size of a sub. I probably have 3"on all sides and 3ft of headspace. When I get home I can post some pictures. It will be much easier to understand at that point. 

I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to use those locations. which is a bummer.


----------



## 94VG30DE (Nov 28, 2007)

I think I get what you are saying, but yes a picture would be worth at least 999 words. 
Aesthetically, I can see how those cubbies would seem like a really good, high-WAF placement. However, especially if they are backed up into the corners of the room (thereby making them SuperCorners (TM)) I think they are going to be the most troublesome position aurally.


----------



## ChadS99SVT (Apr 13, 2013)

Here is the picture. I moved the sub all over the room last night. It did perform better in the right cubby but still on the big bass drops vibrated a lot. I'm tracing most of my issues back to the fire place pretty bummed because I'm not sure what can be done with that. 




image by ChadS13TDI, on Flickr


Do you think results will be different with a front firing sub?


----------



## its_bacon12 (Aug 16, 2007)

You'll have issues like that when corner loading. Does it have a subsonic filter? If it does, move the dial on that up to like 30-40hz and see what happens. Looks like the little nooks are giving it a lot of cabin gain.


----------



## Freedom First (May 17, 2010)

Move it out of the cubbyhole and into the room (stick it under an end-table if possible, to increase WAF), and it'll clean up, immensely.

Cube subs never do very well stuck in cubbyholes or up against walls, unless specifically designed for that application. I have a pair of old Fosgate Audionics passive subs (JBL LE-14's) that sound muddy and rattle a room that's built on a concrete slab, but move them about 3ft. from the walls, and they tighten up wonderfully! Gets the wife bent out-of-shape, though... 

I remember a few years back going to a Sencore calibrator's conference (for both video and audio), and going through a sub-placement exercise. You could actually calculate the optimum location for a sub based on its resonant freq., after an initial frequency sweep. Always ended up away from a wall by at least several feet, and _never_ in a corner.


----------



## 94VG30DE (Nov 28, 2007)

Can you sneak it where the left side (from our perspective) of the TV stand? Stack all your electronics on the RH side and put the sub on the LH side. This in combination with a shelf filter or something to cut out some of the corner loading effect might make that location workable without totally ruining the aesthetic of the room. It's a pretty room, it is just NOT designed with the TV as a priority. 

Also make sure all those decorative things are vibration-isolated somehow so they don't rattle on the shelf. A tiny layer of CCF under each item would be invisible from the room, but would keep it from rattling. You are going to have to treat everything on that wall.


----------

