Can I place a subwoofer in a custom cabinet? Rookie question for sure.

[ew6050]

I am remodeling my living room and really don't want to have my subwoofer be visible in the room and am wondering if it would be a mistake to put it in a custom bookcase in a bottom cabinet near the rear of my room? Would that be a crazy or stupid thing to do from a quality of sound point-of-view? I don't know much about subwoofers and would welcome any feedback.

Also, what is the best wiring to do in the wall? In my last home I ran heavily shielded coax from wall plate to wall plate inside the walls with RCA jacks on the wall plates and then just plugged into the LFE jack on my subwoofer. Is that a good way to go?

THANKS!

 

[Tritonman]

You would have to experiment with your sub placement the way you would like to use it. By placing a box inside of a box you are essentially changing the way the enclosure was intended to perform. I would recommend using some type of an eq with your sub if you want to place it in such a small enclosure. The Behringer DSP-1124 will help "fix" what problems you may come across once the sub is placed inside your custom setting.

There would also be the concern of vibrations to whatever else is attached to the bookshelf or whatever else it is you would be building along with the sub compartment.

As far as wiring is concerned...running shielded RG6 is just fine. Its a 75ohm cable just like a "special" subwoofer cable would be..and coax is by far cheaper if you are utilizing a long run. You dont necessarily need a heavy shielded cable as sub 80hz frequencies arent affected as badly or noticeable by unshielded cable as above the 80hz mark by interference.

 

[Sheep]

I am remodeling my living room and really don't want to have my subwoofer be visible in the room and am wondering if it would be a mistake to put it in a custom bookcase in a bottom cabinet near the rear of my room? Would that be a crazy or stupid thing to do from a quality of sound point-of-view? I don't know much about subwoofers and would welcome any feedback.

Also, what is the best wiring to do in the wall? In my last home I ran heavily shielded coax from wall plate to wall plate inside the walls with RCA jacks on the wall plates and then just plugged into the LFE jack on my subwoofer. Is that a good way to go?

THANKS!

Sealed and front ported subwoofers can go in cabinets. Any other design will have the sound affected by the cabinet. Basically, only subwoofers that throw bass energy forward can go in cabinets.

A decent shielded coax cable will work fine.

SheepStar

 

[Tritonman]

Also try to remember that your choice for sub placement may or may not be the "optimal" area for the sub to be. You would be essentially restricting yourself to a dedicated spot in your room that may not yield the performance your subwoofer is capable of or what you expect to get out of it. Finding the correct placement for a sub is not always an easy thing do. Some people move their subs many times until they find the right spot that gives them the response they are looking for.

 

[j_garcia]

If you can make the cabinet so that the front door is acoustically transparent material, and use a front firing, front ported sub, then yes it would probably work. You will still most likely get some boundary effect from the sub being close to a wall.

Tritonman has a VERY good point too - limiting yourself to basically one spot may not yeild the best results for a given sub in your particular room. CAN you do it? Yes. Should you do it is probably a better question...

 

[bigpapa]

You need at least as much air pass as the diameter of your main driver. Fabric is probably ideal if it passes WAF.

Also, use some insulating material within the cabinet surrounding the sub. Even a couple of cheap polyfill pillows bought at Wallmart my cut down on any boudary and muddiness.