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If you are building a home theater or want to get the most out of your current one, a subwoofer is a must. It may even be worth investing in a few, but that all depends on a few other features of the room they are in. If you want a bass so deep and loud it shakes your chair like you were in a movie theater, there is a sweet spot for just how many subs you’ll want.
A subwoofer is a powerful device that handles all of the bass and deep notes in music and movies. A normal speaker does include low frequencies and bass, but it is nothing compared to the sound an actual subwoofer can produce. A single subwoofer can get the job done for a starter setup, but two is ideal to really get the most out of lower frequencies without reducing sound quality. Having multiple subs isn’t about getting louder and deeper bass, it’s about smoothing out the sound quality to give you a deeper and richer bass tone throughout the entire room. The number of subs and the placement is how you get the best audio out of your subwoofer.
When one or two subwoofers is enough
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When deciding how many subs to get, the most obvious factor is the size of the room they’ll be in. A single subwoofer may be adequate if your home theater is in a smaller room. There isn’t a lot of space for the frequencies to bounce off of and interact with each other. The bass will also be loud enough to enhance your audio quality experience. However, adding a second subwoofer will ensure an equilibrium of sound between all the subs, giving you a more rounded bass.
The placement of the subwoofers is also important in determining the sound quality of the lower frequencies. This is due to room modes, which are how the frequencies of speakers and subwoofers react in a room based on where they are placed. A room mode includes peaks and dips in the response of frequencies, and they react to the room itself. Objects that frequencies can bounce off of play a role in how the sound travels and is heard. When waves interact with a wall, floor, or ceiling, you get peaks in sound. When the waves meet and are out of phase with one another, they create a dip in the frequency response. By placing subwoofers opposite of one another, the waves will be better distributed throughout the room, giving you a more consistent frequency. Placing the sub in a poor location is just one thing to stop doing if you have a subwoofer.
Is there such thing as too many subwoofers?
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There is a reason the phrase the more the merrier exists, but in the world subwoofers, that only works in certain circumstances, such as a large home theater room. Going with three or even four subwoofers in your home theater can increase the sound quality to feel even more like a night at a professional movie theater. One key feature is to calibrate your entire speaker system with calibration software that brings all of the sound system together in an AV receiver. The more subs you have, the more likelihood that their levels won’t match. Combining all of the subwoofers through calibration provides a true theater experience as the bass can be felt throughout each seat, no matter where it is placed in the room.
Getting the best sound quality out of a subwoofer comes down to where it is placed and not where it is facing. Your subwoofer should face the direction you want the sound to go, but ensuring it’s not right up against the wall is more important. If you truly want a movie theater experience, consider adding two subs to your home theater so you can enjoy your favorite flick from the comforts of your own chair.