What may be visually appealing may not be the most appropriate siting for subwoofers which should be chosen acoustically and may well not be the similar to the location of the main speaker. One approach is to use room nodes at bass frequencies to establish preferable positions from the listening position. Remember that very low frequencies are not directional.
Given the positive comments on the dCS room including best sound at the show, I think we can be reasonably confident that the best positions were chosen.
Pretty much as Pete says - the ideal location for the subs isnât necessarily aligned with the speakers, itâs where the subs give the most consistent bass response in the room given the room modes at play. The Loke subs also have the ability for phase to be manually tuned so time was spent getting that right, without need to physically align them with the main channels.
The subs were set with a crossover of 50Hz, and given the large wavelengths at play there, having the speakers partially between the subs and the listener really doesnât make much difference. Positioning them for bass reinforcement instead of time alignment is the way to go
Thatâs not fully my experience with subwoofers, adjusting the phase works better if the subs are in front or aligned to the mains, transients remain sharper that way. Anyway my comment was not ment to have a subwoofer placement dicussion. I am happy that the SQ of this room was well received, often not a given at show conditions
Imprezap2 makes a great point about time alignment in the bass. System setup is always about maximizing the roomâs strengths and minimizing its weaknesses. Shows are very difficult because of the limited time and the hostile environments typical of these spaces. Rarely do absolute rules in setup apply. While it is ideal for subwoofers to be aligned on the acoustic centers of the main speakers in terms of transient performance, there are other key factors that come into play, such as linearity in the bass, bass extension, etc.
In the area of the room where the Sabrinas sounded best (best tonal beauty, dimensionality, transient impact, dynamic contrast, etc.) there was a significant room mode in the bassâit rolled off steeply below 50hz. While the Sabrinas were otherwise remarkably linear in this position, they were quite truncated in the bottom two octaves. When placed in the same plane as the Sabrinas, the LoKe did little to augment the main speakersâ bass extension. The subs were fighting against the substantial dip in this area of the room below 50hz.
Moving the subs to a portion of the room that was more linear in the very bottom octaves was the solution. The Wilson crossover for the LoKe features infinitely variable phase, which allows the sub to be aligned virtually in the time domain with the main speakersâeven when the drivers are not aligned physically. In this instance, each subâs phase angle was set up individually. Using this method, a properly designed sub can be optimised both for bass linearity and transient speedâas was the case for dCSâs room set up in Munich.
Incidentally, even when the subwoofers are placed in the same acoustic plane as the mains, adjusting the phase angle in conjunction with the mains speakers is critical to maximizing speed and linearity.
I was in MĂźnchen in 2024.
The setup from DCS was very good. I like the Sabrina x and the subs.
I have a question.
Is it possible to connect the subs with a Rossini (no apex). I use my Rossini as a dac.
And which outputs should I connect them to.
Thanks In advance.
Hi and welcome to the community. Incidentally do you mean 2024 or 2025?
Not that the date is relevant here. It is easy to connect active subwoofers to dCS units as fully buffered balanced XLR or single ended RCA outputs are provided. So you can connect your preamp or power amp to XLR and subwoofers to RCA.
