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Pro Sound Web: “Subwoofers should be located on the floor if at all possible.” This is one of those classic bits of audio “conventional wisdom.” I hear it from system operators on nearly every project.
But is it true?
2 comments:
Daniel S
said...
As far as I’m concerned, all the subwoofers should go in the trash. Aside from at the highest end of theater, nobody knows how to use a subwoofer properly. Even if they do, most applications have them cranked up so much that it makes your body vibrate, you can’t hear anything else, and it is just annoying. I have no idea why people feel the need to turn the bass up to 11. As far as I’m concerned, subwoofers are meant to support the main audio. By turning them up all the way, you are defeating the purpose. I can’t stand it. The fact that people enjoy this completely baffles me. It is incredibly difficult to get balanced sound in most any space. It takes a lot of time and training. I’m glad that somebody has done the work to find the optimal placement for subwoofers. Now if they’d only set them to appropriate levels.
I really do not understand the focusing of speakers past the mixing of the waves in the crossing paths and the differences in height that can be made to change the overall sound quality. Subwoofers have so much more science behind them than I originally thought and I honestly had never heard about any of these floor or vertical surface rules, but they all seem to hold some kind of weight in their reasoning. Something I have always understood is the loss caused by having audience members closer or farther away than others. I never really thought of a way to combat this other than staggering speakers within the audience, however, then you achieve that no so nice delay from all the cable lengths and data being sent over more distance. To be honest, this is the part of sound I can’t really comprehend and gets me all confused. But I do acknowledge it as a awesome science.
2 comments:
As far as I’m concerned, all the subwoofers should go in the trash. Aside from at the highest end of theater, nobody knows how to use a subwoofer properly. Even if they do, most applications have them cranked up so much that it makes your body vibrate, you can’t hear anything else, and it is just annoying. I have no idea why people feel the need to turn the bass up to 11. As far as I’m concerned, subwoofers are meant to support the main audio. By turning them up all the way, you are defeating the purpose. I can’t stand it. The fact that people enjoy this completely baffles me. It is incredibly difficult to get balanced sound in most any space. It takes a lot of time and training. I’m glad that somebody has done the work to find the optimal placement for subwoofers. Now if they’d only set them to appropriate levels.
I really do not understand the focusing of speakers past the mixing of the waves in the crossing paths and the differences in height that can be made to change the overall sound quality. Subwoofers have so much more science behind them than I originally thought and I honestly had never heard about any of these floor or vertical surface rules, but they all seem to hold some kind of weight in their reasoning. Something I have always understood is the loss caused by having audience members closer or farther away than others. I never really thought of a way to combat this other than staggering speakers within the audience, however, then you achieve that no so nice delay from all the cable lengths and data being sent over more distance. To be honest, this is the part of sound I can’t really comprehend and gets me all confused. But I do acknowledge it as a awesome science.
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