why doesnt anything sound good in my bonus room

[dennit469 10+ year member]

i have a bonus room, over garage (2 story house), no sub i put in here sounds good, it pisses me off, i had a sony 10" woofer that sounded fantastic at a friend of mines but not at my house. i blew that trying to make it sound liek it did at his house. now i have a acoustic research 12 that is self amplified, it was pretty BA my other friends house, but here in this room, it doesnt show me nearly what it did at house. idk what the problem is, the intensity of the sound doesnt change no matter where i put it. right now in a corner behind the tv hoping for it to sound better because its a tighter space with walls to reflect off of, and still nothing, ts getting its signal from an onkyo 5.1 channel system, which has previously played this sub before, at my friends. i dont know what to do

Click to read more...

 

[Einzee 10+ year member]

Many variables to take into consideration. Overall size of room. Ceiling height. Furnishings including drapes. And finally, floor coverings. It all may seem irrelevant but it really isn't.

 

[thevic24 5,000+ posts]

where at in the room do you sit to listen to it? it sounds funny but put the sub where you sit(if you can) then walk around the room untill you find the best sound to your liking. when you find the best spot, kneel down and make shure it still sounds good to you then place the sub in that spot and it should sound good(even better) at your listening position.

did your friends home have block walls and a concrete floor?

-vic

 

[dennit469 10+ year member]

nah normal wood dloor with kinda thick carpet, mines not quite as thick and the room is bigger, the celing is a standar like 10 foot i think, so is his. and the sub sounds the best when i put my head behind the tv where it is, anywhere else its like nasty sounding

 

[Towncar 10+ year member]

pictures of the room/ setup

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

Many subs come with built in analysis tools. This allows the sub to self-calibrate to the room conditions. Also, many receivers do as well (very inexpensive Pioneers have a feature like that).

 

[blazeplacid 10+ year member]

check your settings

some subs like the lfe switched off

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

Also, have you considered trying a different source? Perhaps bring your friends receiver over to see if it may just be a faulty RCA or low voltage from the unit.

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

Good advice below

Don't just plunk down that subwoofer in the nearest corner and leave it there, making rash judgments on its performance before you've taken time to experiment with different subwoofer locations in the room. Subwoofer performance is so dependent on individual room dimensions and placement, as well as the relative position of chairs and couches, that you must experiment. A corner sub location will give you the greatest bass output at the risk of boomy or thumpy deep bass. You can always try a corner first; if the bass is too boomy, gradually reposition the sub away from the corner along one wall or the other. Try the "crawl" test, which you can read about here. It works quite well to determine the optimal placement for your subwoofer in any room.
Don't turn up the subwoofer volume too high so you can "hear" it when you've first connected it. Start with the subwoofer turned all the way down while you play a selection of music (not a movie), then gradually increase the subwoofer volume until you detect the foundation of deep bass. Gradually increase the subwoofer level until it's nicely in balance with the midrange and treble. If you've set it correctly, test it with a movie noted for its low-frequency content and you'll likely find that the subwoofer level is ideal. You may still want to make slight adjustments of the subwoofer level using the A/V receiver's remote control during movies or TV shows. Some directors or sound mixers get bass-obsessed and mix the bass levels too loud, which may be distracting and inhibit dialog clarity.

Look at the controls on the back panel of your subwoofer. There should be a control labeled "Crossover" and nearby it may have a switch labeled "Bypass". In most home theater setups that use an A/V receiver, you will set the crossover control inside the receiver (a default setting of 80 Hz works very well in most installations) so the subwoofer's internal crossover won't be needed. Nor do you want to use it together with the crossover in the receiver. That's called "cascading" crossovers and it's not desirable. So if your subwoofer has a "Bypass," then set it to that position. If the sub does not have a bypass setting, turn the crossover control to the highest frequency setting, usually around 150 Hz. That will effectively remove the subwoofer's internal crossover from the circuit.

With all AV receivers and subwoofers, you'll only need a single shielded RCA coaxial cable from the receiver's Subwoofer Out connection (color-coded purple) to the subwoofers "line-level" or "low-level" female RCA input jack. Don't use speaker cable to connect the subwoofer to an AV receiver. That would only be required for a receiver or amplifier that lacks a subwoofer output jack, e.g., an older stereo receiver or integrated stereo amplifier or a stereo "separates" installation. In those cases, you run two speaker cables from the stereo receiver's left and right speaker outputs to the subwoofer's left and right speaker inputs (they will be labeled "Speaker Level Inputs" or "High-Level Inputs") and then from the subwoofer to your main speakers. For that installation, you would set the subwoofer's own internal crossover. Try about 80 Hz as a crossover frequency.

 

[gymfreak101 10+ year member]

check out the avia home theatre dvd and buy a spl meter from Radio Shack or as pl8er has said alot of reciever now have calibration built into them. My sub is actually behind me in my living room.

 

[Fast1one 10+ year member]

Bonus room huh? Is it kinda long and narrow? I ask this because I have a similar room in my house, and it has horrible acoustics. What you are experiencing is terrible room modes giving you a ragged response. Its mostly the parallel walls causing all the trouble...

The only real way to cure a room with bad bass acoustics is to use the multiple sub approach: http://mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/

 

[dennit469 10+ year member]

the onkyo was my friends main unit, now its mine. i used to have a RCA main unit but the onkyo didnt really make a difference

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

You may need room treatments if you can't find a sweet spot. They have really come down in price.

 

[IamDeMan 5,000+ posts]

For finicky rooms, I have found that you need to suspend the sub from the ceiling until it is a mid point between floor and ceiling. It forces it to fill the entire room instead of hiding in the nearest corner. Give it a try.

 

[dennit469 10+ year member]

so your sayin haing it from the ceiling?