Subwoofer Recommendations: 4 subs in corners, 2000 cu. ft.

[white_darren]

I'm no expert but I've never been a fan of corner loading subs. Far too many variables outside of the speakers themselves influencing the sound.

[N Boros]

I'm no expert but I've never been a fan of corner loading subs. Far too many variables outside of the speakers themselves influencing the sound.

I think that you are talking about corner loading one subwoofer. Currently the theater area of my basement is open to the entire rest of the finished basement. It is in a corner of the basement, which is irregularly shaped. I plan to put up a couple of walls that the theater room with be sealed and rectangular. However, right now I purposely tried to corner load the subwoofer to give me as much output as I can get. I only have an Outlaw LFM-1 subwoofer and I am sitting about 12 feet away from. When I ran bass sweeps, I was getting a null from the subwoofer, but switching the phase 180 degrees took out the null altogether. There were huge peaks, which would not make this a good place to put the sub without any EQ. After running Audyssey it was able to easily bring down those peaks and now the sweeps from 20 Hz up to 100 Hz are very even. I would say that as long as you can get rid of the nulls with the phase knob and have a good room EQ program to run, then you should be able to get pretty good results even when placed near a corner. I think that I also ended up with the subwoofer just about corner loaded in my other house as well. I did the subwoofer crawl and was able to get the smallest nulls (or no null at all) in the subwoofer range, when it was placed near a corner. This is probably very much room dependent, where you have had bad results in your room.

[white_darren]

I think that you are talking about corner loading one subwoofer. Currently the theater area of my basement is open to the entire rest of the finished basement. It is in a corner of the basement, which is irregularly shaped. I plan to put up a couple of walls that the theater room with be sealed and rectangular. However, right now I purposely tried to corner load the subwoofer to give me as much output as I can get. I only have an Outlaw LFM-1 subwoofer and I am sitting about 12 feet away from. When I ran bass sweeps, I was getting a null from the subwoofer, but switching the phase 180 degrees took out the null altogether. There were huge peaks, which would not make this a good place to put the sub without any EQ. After running Audyssey it was able to easily bring down those peaks and now the sweeps from 20 Hz up to 100 Hz are very even. I would say that as long as you can get rid of the nulls with the phase knob and have a good room EQ program to run, then you should be able to get pretty good results even when placed near a corner. I think that I also ended up with the subwoofer just about corner loaded in my other house as well. I did the subwoofer crawl and was able to get the smallest nulls (or no null at all) in the subwoofer range, when it was placed near a corner. This is probably very much room dependent, where you have had bad results in your room.

Never said you couldn't make it work but the fact that you spent an entire paragraph discussing various considerations kind of makes my point.

I will also highlight that low frequency issues are not purely a function of the horizontal positioning of a sub along a wall. The vertical positioning between the floor and ceiling can also be problematic (and is the reason I have my E15HP raised off the floor sitting on an 18" cube of wood).

[N Boros]

I ended up talking with Enrico, to see if he could help me narrow things down. I found the conversation to be very helpful. He said that in terms of output, the LV12F would probably be sufficient, since I would be corner loading four of them and because of where I set the volume dial. But, he was nudging me to go with either the LVX12 or the FVX12, because of the extra extension that I would get out of them. He said that even though I can't choosing the damping independently, that having Ascend speakers I would be very happy with high damping. He said that the high damping setting to get the deepest extension would be fine with home theater in my application because of my listening levels and that I have four of them corner loaded. In terms of choosing the LVX12 or the FVX12, be said that if music was the priority, then go with the FVX12, since with music he says that he notices a bit more detail with the metal driver, though they are very close. Even though home theater and TV gets much more use in the room, than music, I think I might just spend the extra bit of money for the FVX12. I do listen to some music, so why not. Also, I think the difference in cost is so small, that the slight extra output, extension and lowered distortion might be something that I would like to have.

I'm getting really close to finalizing my plans for my dedicated theater room now. Not sure if I will be able to line everything up this year with the pandemic going on to have it built. Hopefully early to mid next year at the latest. Excited to have the new subs in a small room, with even bass from seat to seat.