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Splitting your subwoofers

W

WashburnAB95

Nov 18, 2013
455
328
#1
Reading in the other thread... apparently it is bad to split your subwoofers. Idealy they should be together in some kind of vertical array.

If that is so then how come home audio/theater guys often have many subwoofers spread through out the room?
 
#3
I hope I get all of this right:

No matter where you put a single subwoofer, you're going to get nulls and reinforcements at various frequencies. Conventional wisdom in home audio says that you simply move the sub around until it sounds the best.

There are two other schools of thought:

One says that corner placement is better, because it improves low end extension and increases acoustic output. Proponents concede that there's a huge resonant peak, but argue that since there's only one, it's easier to deal with.

There's another camp, at the opposite extreme. They argue for a bunch of smaller subs driven at lower levels, and distributed at irregular intervals around the room. The theory is that the overall system response will be smoother than a single sub.

Our own Duke Lejeune is a proponent of this:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Personally, I don't have a clue how this relates to live sound...
 
#4
Hi.

IMO the difference in the approach lies in the fact that not many can build their music/entertainment room in a space a size of a live venue, and the live acts usually don't perform with a full sub compliment in an average size music/entertainment room.

Time is also an issue.
In a live venue scale, fine tuning even something as simple (simple in theory anyway :)) as a cardioid array can take a full work day.
A home theater enthusiast can use years to fine-tune their system.


WashburnAB95 said:
If that is so then how come home audio/theater guys often have many subwoofers spread through out the room?
Click to expand...

This was a completely new idea to me, and I used to follow Hi-Fi quite closely in the past.

Home theater not so much, I have a cheap audio system I'm content with, and definitely don't have the funds to upgrade it much ;).

While the explanation in the link above is a good one, I for one don't buy it.
Creating x times the resonant dips and peaks of one subwoofer may improve things a bit, but with a hefty price tag.
Using the room to enhance low frequencies have been used in car audio for ages though, and they do use multiple subs, even if it's for a different goal.

Regards
Sam
 
#5
yeah, i always thought the proper home system thing was one sub.

multiple car subs is way different, they're more like multiple drivers in one big cabinet, the inside of the car.
 
#6
I got a home theater system that came with a measurement mic, it measured the room and recommended if the subs in the right place for the seating.

You an pick up measurement mics even for smartphones these days.
It goes against the cool look but you'll find just one place for the subs can usually works the best. And it's been a common practice for FOH for decades.

Smaller rooms you may find it impossible to not hit some nulls, so pick placement for the audience you want to get the best bass. Like the dance floor.

Subs are commonly flown with the line array these days. It won't blast the front row this way. Also a lot of pro setups may have some subs facing in odd directions but running out of phase to purposely null the bass in some directions. Bass is omnidirectional so it can be helpful to cancel out the bass on stage or in weird shaped rooms.
 
#7
Home theatres are small. The standing wave nulls get really nasty. Multiple subs smooth out those nulls.

Live sound is a whole different animal. The problem is those pole mounts they put in subs make splitting stageside with a PA cab atop almost obligatory. Epic fail as a rule. The sub doesn't get boundary loaded, or worse, it has a null from the nearest wall. And there is a power alley up the middle of the room with lumpy bass response everywhere else.
 
#9
I'm just not up for getting into proper sub deployment this late, but you cannot not at all mix discussions about live sound sub deployment and home theater sub deployment. Except to say that the laws of physics in audio do not care about the space they are applied to.

Split subs isn't fatal. Maybe not quite optimum, but really, there's a lot more to worry about than that. In both home theater and live sound.
 
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#11
RDUB said:
I've always had the best results - solid lows, well defined, well heard throughout the venue - with subs together in the centre, time aligned as necessary to the mains.
Click to expand...

Yet again, it's late and I'm just not up for diving deep into this topic tonight (which can fill an entire chapter of any good sound reinforcement manual or handbook)...

Yes, center subs (meaning in the center of the offstage area of the stage) work well and eliminate most (careful here) of the lobes and nulls issues associated with the usual eft/right sub arrangements. There are drawbacks...a big backwash of sub energy on the stage (which isn't always a bad thing, really) and that the more subs that are placed horizontally in the center, the narrower the sub coverage will be (as in, a lot of energy on the floor area in front of the stage, but decreasing energy to the sides) which is the physics of sound at work. Oh, and the increased risk of damage to the subs by overzealous audience members. None of us have ever had to deal with THAT, have we...:roflmao:

If there is an ever-moving target in the PA business, it's the fine art of sub deployment.
 
#12
As I understand it, ideally they should be placed together, at some central point, i.e. center stage, to help control or eliminate comb filtering. There is some very cool info out there on this. That said, it's simply not always practical to do and from what I see all the time folks just can pull themselves away from the symmetry of rt side and left side stacks. The sound company we hire does it all the time. Ain't nobody complaining I guess.
 

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