Set the subwoofer correctly - how it works

Subwoofers often have various setting options. We will explain how to set the bass box correctly and what you have to pay attention to. The correct positioning of the woofer is also important.

Position the subwoofer correctly

There are active and passive subwoofers. The active ones in particular mostly offer various setting options, but even with passive ones, a lot of the sound can be changed via the correct placement:

• The placement of your subwoofer is particularly important: depending on the distance to the wall, the overlay of direct sound and first wall reflection creates a comb filter effect, since they overlap constructively or destructively depending on the wavelength.
• It is best to play your favorite song and listen to it from the typical listening position in the room with different subwoofer distances until you like the sound.

Adjust subwoofer - you should pay attention to this

Volume / Level: This control controls the volume of the subwoofer.

• In small rooms, so-called "room modes" cause low frequencies to roar in large parts of the room. In this case, turn the control slightly down.
• Mainly listen to soft music, but turn up the control, because the hearing threshold for bass is significantly higher than for mids and highs.
• So that you can experience the "Low Frequency Effects" at cinema level in your home cinema, turn up the volume a little if necessary. But be sure to be considerate of your neighbors, because basses penetrate walls particularly well.

Separation frequency: This control specifies the cutoff frequency of the low-pass filter, i.e. the highest frequency that is (still) emitted from the subwoofer at full volume.

• You have to find your compromise here. The higher the cut-off frequency, the more rich bass is emitted. This is especially important if your other speakers are rather small.
• But: frequencies between 80 and a few hundred Hertz can be localized better and better. This can create a conflict between the subwoofer position and the phantom source position, for example in old jazz or rock'n'roll records, in which the bass is often placed clearly on the side and not in the middle.

Phase / 0 ° / 180 °: Both the stereo triangle and the 5.1 speaker setup according to ITU-R BS.775-1 provide approximately equal distances between the listener and each speaker, so that all signals arrive at the listener at the same time.

• If this is not possible in your listening room, you can adjust the phase of the subwoofer so that the signals still arrive in phase.
• You can test this with a Kronecker Delta, for example: The shorter and crisper the impulse sounds, the more precisely the loudspeaker signals arrive in phase.

Crossover / filter order / crossover network: With some speaker systems you can set how steep - i.e. how abrupt - the transition from woofer to midrange is.

• Trials have shown that a gradual transition from woofer to midrange - i.e. a low-order low-pass filter - delivers the best listening experience despite the odd frequency response.

To optimize the overall sound of your system, our tips for adjusting the equalizer will help you. In further practical tips, we provide you with a comparison between Dolby Surround and Dolby Digital and between stereo and discrete surround formats.