Where To Place A Subwoofer With A Soundbar - Subwoofer Placement Tips

Soundbars make for a nice upgrade to the sound system in your home.

And while you may have the most modern and high-quality TV on the market, audio quality tends to decrease as televisions get thinner and thinner.

With that being said, soundbars have definitely gained in popularity over recent years.

Many soundbars available on the market today come equipped with an external subwoofer that enhances the soundbar's audio capabilities, enhancing your movie-watching and series-binging experiences.

While soundbars are thin and sleek speakers that easily mount above the TV or simply sit nicely on a gaming system, subwoofers are a completely different story when it comes to placement.

So the question is: Where to place a subwoofer with a soundbar?

In this article, we’ve covered some tips that will help you in the placement of your subwoofer, so without further ado, let’s dive in.

What Does A Subwoofer Do?

While you’ve been shopping for a soundbar, you may haven’t even realized that, generally, these speakers come with an external subwoofer.

Having a bonus product with your purchase is nice, but do you know what a subwoofer does?

The easiest way to describe a subwoofer is the bass. These devices control all the sound’s lower frequencies, from the music you are playing to sound effects noticeable during movies.

The subwoofer is required to produce high-quality, low-range sounds since your speakers just aren’t able to do it on their own.

So, you should definitely plug in the subwoofer if you want to get the full effect of your favorite music, shows, or movies and learn to make the most of your sound system.

In addition, using a subwoofer takes unneeded stress off your standard speakers, which enables them to produce clearer sound and, thus, higher audio quality.

Why Is Subwoofer Placement Important?

If you aren’t an audio expert, chances are you don’t know that the subwoofer placement is crucial for the overall audio quality and experience.

One side note, if getting the best audio quality isn’t that important to you, you can place your subwoofer wherever you wish to. It’s still going to improve your audio experience, and it’ll sound great, so you can definitely put it somewhere close or wherever the device blends into your decor and style best.

Now for those who would never put such a great thing to waste, let’s discuss how important subwoofer placement is.

Interestingly enough, a room’s shape and structure can have quite a bit of an effect on the sound quality that’s coming from your audio system.

Everything that’s in your room will play a role in the sound quality - from your furniture to the windows and ceiling. While all of these will impact how your speakers sound, they will particularly affect the bass frequencies handled by your subwoofer.

When your subwoofer is competing against your walls, the sound waves bounce around in all directions and produce either standing waves or bass nulls. Both of these lower the music's quality.

The reason why you need to know the proper placement of your subwoofer is so you can avoid these wave types that either reduce the bass definition or leave you with sound dead spots.

Clearly, you can’t alter the walls in your room, but you can do certain things to work with your room’s structure.

Where Should You Put Your Subwoofer?

People commonly place their subwoofers in the corner of their rooms or tucked against a wall. If you put the sub in your room’s corner, it will face outward towards a big part of your room. On the other hand, if you press the subwoofer against a wall, it will deliver more bass.

While this makes sense from the human perspective, neither of these placement methods will get you the best quality bass sound.

In order to achieve this, first, you should keep your subwoofer towards the front half of your listening space.

If you have a stereo system in your room, be sure to place the subwoofer in a way that it faces your bed and also keep it in the half of the room across from the bed.

On the other hand, if the subwoofer is used in the living room with the TV for movies, make sure you face it towards the seating area in the half of the room across from it, usually near the television itself.

Just keep in mind that the rule of thumb when it comes to subwoofer placement is that it is anywhere in the front.

Never put your subwoofer directly parallel with listening or viewing spaces such as the sofa, and definitely not behind the listeners or viewers themselves.

This next bit of advice may sound ridiculous, but one of the best methods you can use to find the perfect spot for your subwoofer is to get on your hands and knees and start crawling.

Move your subwoofer around your room with music playing and listen closely for things such as definition and tone quality, and mark these places on your room’s floor where the subwoofer sounds best.

Once you are done with this silliness, you can look into your best choices and make your decision depending on what you think looks best in the room. Remember, quality comes first, and decor comes second.

Conclusion

Subwoofers will certainly take your viewing or listening experience to the next level. Audio experts most likely already know a lot about increasing your bass and achieving the best in sound quality, but regular folks are usually clueless on the topic.

That’s why you should follow the tips in this guide to make the most of your subwoofers and place your soundbar subwoofer correctly.