Subwoofer placement - back or front of room?

A while back ago @james633 sent me a link to an article about setting up monitors, and this is what the article had to say about setting up subs:

"At low frequencies, it is crucial that the most fundamental room modes are equally excited. Using a single subwoofer, a placement along the front wall, slightly off-centre from the room's middle axis is recommended. Using two or four subwoofers around the room is one option to even out the room mode excitations.

"Placing a subwoofer at a wall or in a corner produces the highest low frequency output. At low frequencies, the flattest response can be achieved when the room mode resonances are equally excited. A single subwoofer is usually placed along the front wall, slightly off-centre from the room’s middle axis. Two subwoofers may be a good solution to produce and even flatter response. Note that during level calibration, the subwoofer output level is set at the same level than the main monitor system."

But unfortunately, finding the ideal position for a sub is probably like positioning speakers--trial and error.

Here is a link to a question I asked on this site about subwoofer placement. I believe the very first reply was from @ghdprentice and he also provided a link to a video on the subject.

. . . I don't think dangling the sub from the ceiling would be a good idea.  If it was not a pretty light weight sub, I don't know what part of the sub you could attach to that wouldn't damage the sub when it was hanging.  Alos, I would think the sub should be anchored to the floor so it wouldn't move when the driver fired, and I would think that the floor would reinforce the bass from the driver.  

I have mine bolted to the roof see here. 🤣

Mike

Go onto internet and find one of the 3-D room mode graphs. Put in your room’s dimensions, and look on the graph for your room’s low pressure zones. Try your sub in any of those locations. That’s the way to minimize your room’s (any and all rooms) ability to produce standing waves, which create bloated, booming bass.

As the graph will illustrate, the worst location is always in room corners. Second worse is where any two room structure surfaces meet---floor and wall, ceiling and wall, wall and wall. That’s why bass traps are always placed first in corners---that’s the highest bass pressure zone in all rooms.

Take a look: 

"The sub is hard to move around", but you ask about suspending it from the ceiling?

Come on, place it where it sounds the best.

ozzy

I have found that the subwoofer aiming directly at the listening position enhances the impact and punch.