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Two subwoofers in smallish HT room?

My home theater system is set up in a 16x11x8 ft room. I currently have one line-level HT subwoofer in the front-right corner. It's a very good subwoofer (Vandersteen V2W), but it needs to play pretty loud to produce good LFE. When it plays loud, it seems to localize.

I've been thinking about getting a 2nd sub and locating it near, but not in, the back left corner of the room in an attempt to smooth out bass response and give me the opportunity to turn down the volume on the front sub.

Does this make sense, or will it make in-room bass response worse? Is the room too small for two subs?
rex
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
More reading on out-of phase subs.

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=15708

Dave
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Sogood51...Fun and games for sure.

I don't think this has anything to do with SW X/O frequency. The sound wave doesn't care whether it is launched from a separate box or not. Very deep bass will boom nicely if your room is large enough to sustain the frequency, and the speaker/subwoofer is capable of the frequency. And, by the way, if your ears are sensitive to the frequency.

When almost 30 years ago I first observed the bass-boosting effect of out-of-phase rear speakers I didn't like it. However, for exploding car movies I can understand why people like it.
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
Eldartford

I guess I'll just agree to disagree then...my findings are very different than yours. I would hate to be standing in the room when those 20hz booms take place though...should take no more than 100,000 watts or so to blow the windows and bring down the roof!!!

Dave
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Sogood51...It was a surprise to me, but I measured about 4.5 watts rms into each of my three SW system, a total of less than 15 watts, to shake the windows in my listening room, using a warble test signal around 30 Hz. The assumption that LF takes a lot of power does not stand up to objective measurement. My CarverPro ZR1600 amps drive a woofer system with one side and a MG1.6 with the other, and if I crank up the volume I can make the MG1.6 side clip (LED indicator) while the SW side is still loafing. Hard to believe, but that's the fact.

You might want to check Rives website and study up on room resonance. (Maybe buy his gadget also).
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
Eldartford

I also run three subs, your measurements go right along with my findings. My Onkyo M-504 sub amp has large power meters and confirm that very little power is needed to shake my 4,800 cubic ft. room on it's cement slab floor.

I do indeed have all the tools to measure my room in 1db increments and am very lucky that it measures very smooth over-all with no large peaks/dips down to 17hz...I did build the room as a " room with-in a room"... with my sons help.

I guess where we differ is in how we define "Boom". I was born in 1950 so remember sonic boom before it was outlawed over our homes. You can get a 100hz freq to boom within a room...20hz?...naaah, it would take a huge amount of power.

I guess the other place we differ is on how X-over effects room modes. I have done hundreds of tests using many configurations...over-all measurements as a complete system (speakers+sub) can change drasticly with only a change of x-over settings.

At this time my front subs are 25 ft apart and located at around the ceiling/floor null-point, (Supertowers are upside down) and in the corners in other words. What do you think Rives would think of that!...gotta love those measurements and go with what works after all.

Dave
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