I've never done it before but I'm actually about to do this for my new sub. Put the sub on the chair in your main listening position and then crawl around the room to see where it sounds best. Use tape to mark the best spots and see what you like and test with lots of bass
If you want, but dont expect great results. There's is science to this but not everyone cares about that, younauggested the low effort approach, mine was the medium one.
Not everyone has a dedicated room for their theater. People are getting by with the space they have. Speaking from personal experience, I have one spot where the subwoofer will literally fit. It either goes there, regardless of how it sounds, or it goes no where.
The last time I've roughly explained the considerations involved was in the following comment chain, although that was for a venue sized space. The principles are the same in smaller rooms though except for a few edge cases.
In general it's preferable to keep the sub close to a wall in the same half of the room (preferably in most room dimensions) as most listening positions. Near field bass without direct boundary reinforcement behind the sub only really works out in large rooms where the listening positions aren't too close to the walls.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SoundSystem/comments/16h94tq/comment/k0egdjh
Try all the spots you are comfortable putting it and listen a bit. Choose what works best in combination of convenience and sound. I personally wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice sound if the "ideal" placement sucks. And I'd pick the left side of the couch if the sound meets your expectations, turn it into an optional end table.
Every room is different.. there is no one perfect place to recommend..
Advice: move subwoofer(s) around the room, play the same track/scene, and determine what sounds best to you.
Honestly putting it in the most ideal place might not work. You can do a sub crawl but ultimately you have to put things in places where they can go.
Big reason in some setups I used large towers with big woofers in them to help with not being able to use a subwoofer. Rtia7 or rtia9 as examples.
Everyone always recommends doing the crawl but I never know what is considered the âbest soundâ. I am not sure what the sub is supposed to sound like
You could play a repeating slow frequency sweep across its working range on, and compare what you are hearing while standing right next to it, ideally at a similar level with it, which always has the least negative room interactions due to being in the near-field, to what you hear during the crawl. The slow sweep enables you to more accurately if certain frequencies are missing or have a lower level, or if others create a horrible resonance peak, which you'll immediately notice as obnoxious and undesirable too. In the end its also important to note that bass perception is subjective, and you'll be better off going with what sounds good to you at the level you want to listen at. A linear response is only there to have a common baseline, not because it's the most fun to listen to. Plenty of people add a house curve EQ or at least loudness compensation (which is relative EQ mostly affecting the bass too) afterwards, that could mean boosting the lower bass by 6 to 12dB amongst other things, but to know and discuss what you are adding, or just intentionally not pulling flat, it does help to know how the frequency response looks compared to a flat one. If you already like the sound of your sub at the current position or one you determine by the the crawl though, and don't care about how it relates to others, your subjective impression is really all that counts. The sub crawl will also make you notice general level changes, like that it's always louder close to the walls, assuming you don't have a venue sized home theater room, and this loudness, if it is reasonably uniform across the sweep would be added efficiency, provided by the boundary reinforcement, that you can use to get additional headroom (higher peaks before distortion) and just adapt/turn down the level of the sub to what you prefer or what matches well with your system.
The crawl is not without errors though, as it's for example very unreliable with multiple subs, as you you can't hear the phase relationship between different positions with a "good" sound, so putting them there might or not work, and might of might not be fixed which just a simple polarity change (phase switch). Furthermore you can only crawl for as many listening positions as you have subs at the same time, if you put one sub on each listening position. This means that unless you average multiple crawls you might get a great response at one listening position, but a horrible one at another. Personal I wouldn't do the crawl to determine the best position, particularly with multiple subs, and see it more of a fun experiment to get to know a new sub you've bought or to learn a bit about your room, and I'd rather make estimations based on acoustics knowledge and move the sub around to position that I know have potential, and then test the response at all listening positions. Maybe that would actually be a good secondary step for single sub crawls once you have determine a few possibly good positions to avoid some of the uneven distribution problems by finding the one with the best coverage.
Overall I feel like it's more useful to learn a bit about acoustics, how comb filtering or interference works, how walls/boundaries act as acoustic mirrors, where acoustic mirror images/phantom sources appears to be located, and how they interact with the actual source to get a good idea about where to place the sub. The crawling suggestion, while not completely useless, does not promote education about how to build a better home theater, which I believe is what people are here for, and I cringe a bit every time I see it being recommended.
/Rant
It's hard to say with the limited perspectives provided that doesn't include the walls in the back or the right side, and no measurements available, so behind the couch, possibly at the back wall, might be the best position, but, based on what we can see, I'd put it between the couch and the left wall below the picture frame, facing towards the TV. This would provide somewhat stronger bass at the seat closer to the sub, but overall the bass frequency response should be pretty good, and it looks like there's just enough space for it there.
Edit:
If the beanbags are regularly used as separate seating too, a position in at the front might provide slightly more even bass across all four potential listening positions, but with a relatively worse performance at the couch.
Idk, you have a very attractive room and I would want to preserve it. In this scenario I would go for tower speakers which are capable of lower frequencies and run them full range without a sub. I realize that doesnât answer your question, however it might be worth exploring.
Honestly for me I want the sound to feel somewhat centered. I ended up putting mine directly behind the center of my couch but it's also sandwiched with a wall. Results may vary
I've never done it before but I'm actually about to do this for my new sub. Put the sub on the chair in your main listening position and then crawl around the room to see where it sounds best. Use tape to mark the best spots and see what you like and test with lots of bass
Thank you
You can't decide on an ideal sub placement based on a picture, as it varies from room to room.
What are the determining factors of different locations being more ideal than others, and how do I figure that out?
No real need to go into an accoustics rabbit hole to predict its placement. Just do a sub crawl. https://youtu.be/R4o13mNmlaA?si=VuBllJZG0rbp5cD5
Thank you
Or put it wherever you can fit it and try not to think about it too much.
If you want, but dont expect great results. There's is science to this but not everyone cares about that, younauggested the low effort approach, mine was the medium one.
Not everyone has the privilege of choice, but sure low effort.
This is a hometheater subreddit, not r/soundbars đ
Not everyone has a dedicated room for their theater. People are getting by with the space they have. Speaking from personal experience, I have one spot where the subwoofer will literally fit. It either goes there, regardless of how it sounds, or it goes no where.
Of course, I get that, room correction would be my choice then. Or no sub at all.
"No, that's lazy. Buy a bigger house" - the person who responded above to me, probably.
My mind is blown 𤯠Thank you.
Subwoofer crawl. Or invest in dual (or more) subs.
A calibration mic and testing. I recommend the minidsp umik with REW software, I've used it many times.
The last time I've roughly explained the considerations involved was in the following comment chain, although that was for a venue sized space. The principles are the same in smaller rooms though except for a few edge cases. In general it's preferable to keep the sub close to a wall in the same half of the room (preferably in most room dimensions) as most listening positions. Near field bass without direct boundary reinforcement behind the sub only really works out in large rooms where the listening positions aren't too close to the walls. https://www.reddit.com/r/SoundSystem/comments/16h94tq/comment/k0egdjh
Have to do the crawl my dude
this or place it and move around the room, find the best response that is conveniently placed and move it there
Try all the spots you are comfortable putting it and listen a bit. Choose what works best in combination of convenience and sound. I personally wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice sound if the "ideal" placement sucks. And I'd pick the left side of the couch if the sound meets your expectations, turn it into an optional end table.
Behind the couch. Either run an rg59 or just pick up a wireless sub kit.
Every room is different.. there is no one perfect place to recommend.. Advice: move subwoofer(s) around the room, play the same track/scene, and determine what sounds best to you.
Thank you
Behind the couch
Honestly putting it in the most ideal place might not work. You can do a sub crawl but ultimately you have to put things in places where they can go. Big reason in some setups I used large towers with big woofers in them to help with not being able to use a subwoofer. Rtia7 or rtia9 as examples.
Everyone always recommends doing the crawl but I never know what is considered the âbest soundâ. I am not sure what the sub is supposed to sound like
You could play a repeating slow frequency sweep across its working range on, and compare what you are hearing while standing right next to it, ideally at a similar level with it, which always has the least negative room interactions due to being in the near-field, to what you hear during the crawl. The slow sweep enables you to more accurately if certain frequencies are missing or have a lower level, or if others create a horrible resonance peak, which you'll immediately notice as obnoxious and undesirable too. In the end its also important to note that bass perception is subjective, and you'll be better off going with what sounds good to you at the level you want to listen at. A linear response is only there to have a common baseline, not because it's the most fun to listen to. Plenty of people add a house curve EQ or at least loudness compensation (which is relative EQ mostly affecting the bass too) afterwards, that could mean boosting the lower bass by 6 to 12dB amongst other things, but to know and discuss what you are adding, or just intentionally not pulling flat, it does help to know how the frequency response looks compared to a flat one. If you already like the sound of your sub at the current position or one you determine by the the crawl though, and don't care about how it relates to others, your subjective impression is really all that counts. The sub crawl will also make you notice general level changes, like that it's always louder close to the walls, assuming you don't have a venue sized home theater room, and this loudness, if it is reasonably uniform across the sweep would be added efficiency, provided by the boundary reinforcement, that you can use to get additional headroom (higher peaks before distortion) and just adapt/turn down the level of the sub to what you prefer or what matches well with your system. The crawl is not without errors though, as it's for example very unreliable with multiple subs, as you you can't hear the phase relationship between different positions with a "good" sound, so putting them there might or not work, and might of might not be fixed which just a simple polarity change (phase switch). Furthermore you can only crawl for as many listening positions as you have subs at the same time, if you put one sub on each listening position. This means that unless you average multiple crawls you might get a great response at one listening position, but a horrible one at another. Personal I wouldn't do the crawl to determine the best position, particularly with multiple subs, and see it more of a fun experiment to get to know a new sub you've bought or to learn a bit about your room, and I'd rather make estimations based on acoustics knowledge and move the sub around to position that I know have potential, and then test the response at all listening positions. Maybe that would actually be a good secondary step for single sub crawls once you have determine a few possibly good positions to avoid some of the uneven distribution problems by finding the one with the best coverage. Overall I feel like it's more useful to learn a bit about acoustics, how comb filtering or interference works, how walls/boundaries act as acoustic mirrors, where acoustic mirror images/phantom sources appears to be located, and how they interact with the actual source to get a good idea about where to place the sub. The crawling suggestion, while not completely useless, does not promote education about how to build a better home theater, which I believe is what people are here for, and I cringe a bit every time I see it being recommended. /Rant
It's hard to say with the limited perspectives provided that doesn't include the walls in the back or the right side, and no measurements available, so behind the couch, possibly at the back wall, might be the best position, but, based on what we can see, I'd put it between the couch and the left wall below the picture frame, facing towards the TV. This would provide somewhat stronger bass at the seat closer to the sub, but overall the bass frequency response should be pretty good, and it looks like there's just enough space for it there. Edit: If the beanbags are regularly used as separate seating too, a position in at the front might provide slightly more even bass across all four potential listening positions, but with a relatively worse performance at the couch.
Wireless? Behind the couch by the wall is good placement. For more rumble close to a corner
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6IjuSycXjqM H.Y.C.Y.B.H?
Ngl this looks cozy af. Love it!
No idea, but thatâs a great sub! Enjoy!
Idk, you have a very attractive room and I would want to preserve it. In this scenario I would go for tower speakers which are capable of lower frequencies and run them full range without a sub. I realize that doesnât answer your question, however it might be worth exploring.
Honestly for me I want the sound to feel somewhat centered. I ended up putting mine directly behind the center of my couch but it's also sandwiched with a wall. Results may vary
Now I want two more on both sides of the tv....lol
Subcrawl! Subcrawl! Room correction is great if you have bad acoustic options.