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[mfabien]

Placement is the most important factor. I used the crawling method to determine my best spot.

 

[Nomo]

Room acoustics are the most important factor IMO.
However, in my case, since we're talking my living room, EQ and sub placement become that much more important.

 

[oldnkranky]

Placement is critical for any speaker. It's a shame that a lot of subwoofers come with almost no placement instructions from the manufactuer. In my room, corner placement is the worst. I've placed my subwoofer (Velodyne) beside the left speaker about two feet from the back wall and nine feet from the side wall.

 

[STRONGBADF1]

First and formost I chose "other". The best way I can think of to get smooth response is your room design. Build a room from scratch with all your dimensions and seat placement figured out to optimize sound quality and design in some bass traps while your at it.

Second and just as important is placing your subs. (notice plural)

After that manual EQ as needed and enjoy.

SBF1

 

[minnichs]

Proper placement in the room and adusting all parameters to the listeners prefernece. We all have different ideas of what a perfect sounding set-up "feels" like

 

[Deleau]

In the new theater room, that is going to be built in my house, I'm taking care to consult professionals in regards to the acoustics and layout of the room. In that regards, I will be looking to tailor the bass response first with sub placement/room design, then tweaking using EQ.

 

[mflaherty]

My vote would be sub placement. From experience, find the right spot in a room is key.

 

[JAD2]

For me I think its equality in signals or a memory setting in the receivers.

Let me explain what I've found.

Radio broadcasts seem to have more of a full range of frequency versus CD input, CD player itself. With this placement isnt critical as much since it blends so much better. I can set for small speakers and its really a continuation of the frequency the mains are'nt set to play. I can go large, the same thing, Dolby, Stereo, Full Stereo, it doesnt matter, it blends well.
Running CD's which through either my CD player or my DVD player, it just it seems to have a gap no matter how I set everything up, so mostly during those times I dont run the sub at all and set to large. It seems to have to much distinction between bass management and the other frequencies the speakers get. If I run the sub I end up setting the crossover much higher, all most peak and turning the sub down to get a decent blend, but not as good as radio.
DVD watching is like radio, but I think its how it makes a scene impact better.

For me its all most impossible to get a good blend for all formats and wish something along the lines of a memory setting that locks in the setting , per format so I didnt have to fiddle all the time. Even better would be a format adopted by all formats so this difference didnt exist!!!

 

[AAD]

I feel that sub placement along with proper sizing for the room are the two most important factors.

 

[JoeE SP9]

Using two or more subwoofers they can be placed asymetrically and complement the nulls and peaks each generate. By combining this with some equalization you can smooth out the bass response.

 

[Excalibur1121]

Smooth Bass

Definitely subwoofer placement and room treatment/acoustics.

 

[Kyle_D]

Everything I've read has focused on placing the sub properly. Still waiting to get a sub and play around with placement to find out for myself

 

[eyecatcher]

Room placement #1

In my experience room placement is the best. I like to experiment with different locations using a few simple tools like test signals and an sound pressure level meter.

Using an inexpensive sound meter like the analog Radio Shack Meter and a test audio CD such as AVIA, one can properly attain a smooth frequency response by adjusting subwoofer placement, gain, cross over frequency, and phase.

The auto eq's are very helpful if you have one. The one available on my entry-mid level system and most others don't accurately compensate the low end so I perfer manual adjustment.

Placement was the only thing that helped me get rid of the +10db standing 40hz wave in my setup.

 

[Rik]

I picked room placement and auto-eq. I don't think I have to explain the room placement choice. The auto-eq is important because no room is perfect and most of us don't have the know how to properly eq our systems.

 

[Robo]

I believe placement, auto EQ and picking the right sub for your room are the most important. Everyone knows placement can change sound output, EQ can aid in finalizing your sound and lastly the sub itself is what can make or break how a system sounds in a particular room (size, brand, watts, etc).

 

[supervij]

I picked room placement and "other". After having done lots of research on where to place all my speakers, I came across what seemed like dozens of websites that say that placement is key, and that moving a sub even a few inches can change the sound dramatically.

I've also been kinda interested lately in acoustically treating my room, and have just started doing some research into that. Haven't actually done anything yet, but I've been reading about bass traps and such, and from what I have read, this is a big help in getting better and smoother bass in a room. So my "other" would be room treatments.

cheers,
supervij

 

[chris71478]

Proper Sub placement is paramount to smooth response. Auto Eq's are the best thing since sliced bread. Now even newbies can hear the benefit of proper calibration.

 

[Radman]

Smooth Bass

From everything that I've read in this and other forums, proper sub placemnt as well as room treatments really do help smooth out bass the most.

 

[dkordonowy]

Proper Placement and Auto EQ

Hi,

I believe that if the subwoofer is of good quality (like SVS), then the two most impactful ways to create smooth bass lie in room placement so that the room works for the subwoofer instead of against, like creating boominess at certain frequencies. Secondly and probably more importantly, it is more easy to smooth the response over frequency by compensating the acoustic response through equalization (although obviously this is not necessarily the most efficient means).

 

[jaxvon]

I think the best way to achieve good response is to place a subwoofer correctly and perform measurements and apply your own, highly accurate EQ with an outboard unit. Auto-eq isn't always the best for your room.