Subwoofer behind seat

[Senior NEET Engineer]

Would there be any sound quality downsides to putting the subwoofer behind the seat? Assuming there aren't any issues with room modes. Considering this placement to keep the volume down a bit.

 

[Dimifoot]

You might be able to localize bass coming from behind you, depending on the crossover frequency.

Also, the butt-kicking might get annoying.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

This was a fail. It's arguably louder in the front corner of my room than right behind the seat. Green is right behind seat and blue is in front corner (7-8 ft away).

 

[suttondesign]

For music, not so great, but okay for movies. Music, IMO, is better with subs somewhere near one of the mains.

 

[kach22i]

Would there be any sound quality downsides to putting the subwoofer behind the seat? Assuming there aren't any issues with room modes. Considering this placement to keep the volume down a bit.

Subwoofer manufactures for the reason of maximizing volume and efficiency recommend corner placement.

That is the worst thing you could do because boundry reinforcement aggravates room modes.

I have my subwoofer in the center, between the two main speakers, forward a few inches and interconnects swaped out of phase.

That is what I found sounds best in my room. Of course every room is different.

The once or twice I've heard a sub behind the listening position it was difficult to localize. However, once heard behind me I could never shake the knowledge from my head and bothered me to no end.

I suspect it was cabinet resonance or room presurization that gave it away and not actual frequency reproduction.

I posted a lot about subwoofer placement in my system thread.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/kach22is-system.30259/

 

[Blumlein 88]

I've seen people use this position effectively a couple times. Depends on the room and position.

 

[daftcombo]

I've seen people use this position effectively a couple times. Depends on the room and position.

Same. If you cross at 70 Hz with steep slope there should be no problem.

 

[dasdoing]

I bought a subwoofer this year, that unfortunatly lasted only 3 days. I started behind the couch. this has actualy a lot of advantages, with the main advantage beeing that the volume can be set very low.
Unfortunaly I had a big null at 33Hz or so, but before I could make further experiments the sub broke (next step would have been make the woofer kiss the backwall (turned around) to remove all speaker boundery effect).
I am not sure if I would have stick to this, you feel all the bass in your but lol. It will probably suck over time

EDIT: another problem is that on a 3 seat sofa the side seats have considerantly lower bass, cause the distance changes very fast.
two subs behind would be perfect. there is actualy some experiment about this in the web. let me see if I find it
EDIT2: can't find the link. there was a guy making meassurements with a lot of configurations behind a couch. he also used dipole subwoofers. google it

 

[Dimifoot]

I am not sure if I would have stick to this, you feel all the bass in your but lol. It will probably suck over time

It does. It’s fun with movies, but really annoying with music

 

[dasdoing]

It does. It’s fun with movies, but really annoying with music

now I see you mentioned it above

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

I ended up giving up on this. Instead I placed the subwoofer where there is large boost in 10-35hz region. Helps a lot to contain the sound from leaking.

 

[Chrispy]

It does. It’s fun with movies, but really annoying with music

My nearfield sub behind my seat doesn't suddenly get worse for music. It's only only one of several, tho.

 

[ripvw]

Hsu Research has always been a fan of nearfield subwoofer placement:

http://www.hsuresearch.com/faq.html#1

What is the best place to put a subwoofer?

​

A good place to start is a front corner furthest from openings. This is generally great for deep bass. If you like a lot of 'hit in the chest' mid bass punch, placing the subwoofer close to you is best (preferably directly behind).

If you have a means of measuring, and is willing to experiment, the subwoofer crawl is the best to find the optimal location for the subwoofer. You place the subwoofer in your listening chair and measure the frequency response at the various locations where you can place the subwoofer. The position that gives the best response is where you put the subwoofer.

Note that where you sit is equally important. If possible avoid sitting in the middle of the room as this is where bass is usually weakest.

 

[dasdoing]

Hsu Research has always been a fan of nearfield subwoofer placement:

http://www.hsuresearch.com/faq.html#1

What is the best place to put a subwoofer?

​

A good place to start is a front corner furthest from openings. This is generally great for deep bass. If you like a lot of 'hit in the chest' mid bass punch, placing the subwoofer close to you is best (preferably directly behind).

If you have a means of measuring, and is willing to experiment, the subwoofer crawl is the best to find the optimal location for the subwoofer. You place the subwoofer in your listening chair and measure the frequency response at the various locations where you can place the subwoofer. The position that gives the best response is where you put the subwoofer.

Note that where you sit is equally important. If possible avoid sitting in the middle of the room as this is where bass is usually weakest.

now the by the side placement I don't get. If there is one person sitting in the middle, ok. but the left person will have way too much bass, and the right way too little. Also as omni as bass is, you can definatly localize bass building up unevenly in corners. putting it by the side will let the nearest corner ring a lot.
unfortunatly I couldn't end my experiments, but having the couch away from the backwall and putting the subwoofer membrane as close to the backwall as possible should be a nice compromise of near-ish-field, 3 people on couch normalization and SBIR avoidence

 

[dasdoing]

https://mehlau.net/audio/dual_nearfield_sub/

 

[sigbergaudio]

There's no one correct answer to this as every room is different, every sub is different in how easily they integrate, and also how easily you can locate them (based on both your crossover configuration and how steep the crossover slope is in the subwoofer). Nearfield (behind/under seat) can work fine, especially with lower crossover settings (40-60hz).

Both corner and wall placement may very well work just fine too and even give you free gain. It may result in uneven bass (but not necessarily), which can usually be helped with EQ, at least below 100hz.

 

[TonioRoffo]

For music, not so great, but okay for movies. Music, IMO, is better with subs somewhere near one of the mains.

I think that doesn't matter. There's tons of quality soundtracks in your movies, so a surround system has to perform just as good for music as for movies. In masterpieces such as "Memoirs of a Geisha" for example, the soundtrack is setting the mood for the movie constantly, hence, your speaker quality & setup should be as good as you can afford and as well as you can possibly set it up.

 

[dasdoing]

I think that doesn't matter. There's tons of quality soundtracks in your movies, so a surround system has to perform just as good for music as for movies. In masterpieces such as "Memoirs of a Geisha" for example, the soundtrack is setting the mood for the movie constantly, hence, your speaker quality & setup should be as good as you can afford and as well as you can possibly set it up.

I would go even further and say that placing one sub near one of the mains is very bad for music. even with a low crossover the bass will build up in the nearer corner and be therefore louder on that side. you realy need to center that bass, either by centering the sub, or by using 2. low bass is omni, but the bass build up in the room isn't. also by placing 1 sub to one side you mess up multi-positions. if you calibrate for MLP the seat on the side of the sub will have too much, and the seat on the other side will lack bass. that's also a case for nearfield. for a 3 seat couch you put 2 subs behind it and can get even bass over the 3 seats. the most perfect solution would be to have those at ear height behind the heads, to avoid the anoying "bass in the ass", and bring audible bass build up in corners to zero