Elevated mounting of subwoofer

[k9jri]

My living area has two elevated locations that I would like to consider
for locating an as yet unpurchased subwoofer. Both locations are 8
feet off of the floor and the ceiling vaults to 14 feet above either
location. These are not shelves... but are solid framed and drywalled
areas of the room.

The area that they would serve is an 18'X18' living room with a
15'x12' dining room in an L shaped configuration. This are areas are
carpeted but closely coupled to a 9'x9' ceramic tiled entryway and a
18'x10' ceramic tiled kitchen. One of the elevated locations is
essentially in the center of the entire area and the other location at
the center of the longer (48') outside wall.

It is possible to mount the sub in one three corners but getting the
audio to those locations is not as convenient as it is to either if the
elevated locations.

The usage will be for both DVD originated home theater as well as
FM/CD/DVD originated Classic Rock music.

Mike

[Arny Krueger]

"k9jri" > wrote in message
oups.com

> My living area has two elevated locations that I would
like to
> consider for locating an as yet unpurchased subwoofer.
Both
> locations are 8 feet off of the floor and the ceiling
vaults
> to 14 feet above either location. These are not
shelves...
> but are solid framed and drywalled areas of the room.
>
> The area that they would serve is an 18'X18' living room
with
> a 15'x12' dining room in an L shaped configuration. This
are
> areas are carpeted but closely coupled to a 9'x9' ceramic
> tiled entryway and a 18'x10' ceramic tiled kitchen. One of
the
> elevated locations is essentially in the center of the
entire
> area and the other location at the center of the longer
(48')
> outside wall.

It's hard to predict how a subwoofer will sound in any
particular location.

The location(s) you describe are not obviously bad.

The usual advice for positioning subs is that you should put
the sub at your prime listening location and then move
around the room, listening at various candidate locations.

The rule of acoustical reciprocity says that if a sub
positioned where you listen sounds good at a certain spot,
it will sound good at your listening location when
positioned at that same spot.

[Howard Ferstler]

k9jri wrote:
>
> My living area has two elevated locations that I would like to consider
> for locating an as yet unpurchased subwoofer. Both locations are 8
> feet off of the floor and the ceiling vaults to 14 feet above either
> location. These are not shelves... but are solid framed and drywalled
> areas of the room.
>
> The area that they would serve is an 18'X18' living room with a
> 15'x12' dining room in an L shaped configuration. This are areas are
> carpeted but closely coupled to a 9'x9' ceramic tiled entryway and a
> 18'x10' ceramic tiled kitchen. One of the elevated locations is
> essentially in the center of the entire area and the other location at
> the center of the longer (48') outside wall.
>
> It is possible to mount the sub in one three corners but getting the
> audio to those locations is not as convenient as it is to either if the
> elevated locations.
>
> The usage will be for both DVD originated home theater as well as
> FM/CD/DVD originated Classic Rock music.
>
> Mike

Give it a try. The worst that would happen is that the
performance would not be to your taste. If this is the case,
the subs can be laboriously relocated to those alternate
sites. The way subs interact with rooms having complex
shapes is hard to predict in any case, and so all bets are
off when trying to predict if one location away from corners
will work better than any other, including the corners.

Actually, it would look kind of cool to have subs located as
you indicate, and the sound may be just fine. If you opt to
get a ported sub, make sure that the port does not get boxed
in tightly by the wall area. A sealed-box sub would not have
this problem, of course.

Howard Ferstler