Help: Placement of Paradigm Sub 1 (1 Viewer)

I am setting up a temporary theater. (I can't have all this nice equipment and not use it!) I have two Paradigm Sub 1's. I am concerned about the placement of the front sub. There is a 36” x 16” water-supply cabinet in the front left of the room, as seen in the pictures. It cannot be removed, at least for now. Question: Do I place the sub in front and slightly left (1/2 width) of the cabinet, which would dissipate some of the sound waves – OR - do I place the sub along the left wall, where it can be moved forward and backward along the straight wall? Remember, the Paradigm Sub 1 has six speakers, each pair firing at 120 degrees on axis.

You put it in the room where it works best.

Sub crawl.

I have to pick a starting point. All of my wiring is a fixed length and has to run to one side or the other. So which side has the probability of working the best?

Put it where you plan on sitting. Move around the room, and listen at the height where your sub will sit. Put the sub where the sound from the sub is best.


That's what I'd do to start off, anyway. To some extent, it may make less of a difference if you are using 2 subwoofers. I use two, and I found the sound is different if I turn one off-it sounds much better in every seat with both on. I put them close to the middle of both side walls initially, and had to do some fine tuning. I thought about doing a sub crawl for each position, but after starting to move them, I decided I'd try that some other time. I ended up moving the left side subwoofer slightly forward to allow enough space to go around it, and had to move the right side subwoofer another foot or so into the room, to eliminate a rattle coming from the wall or an echo from the wall-I'm not sure which. There are some articles on different forums and with some of the speaker manufacture's web sites about placement of multiple subs. Most of them seem to suggest putting them in opposite (symmetrical) positions in the room.


I also wired multiple outlets for a sub when I initially planed the room, thinking that I was going to use one subwoofer. Even with two, I used a long enough cable for connections that I had some leeway with placement.

Here my 2 cents.

Subs are strange creatures. Everyone has a suggestion on where to put the sub but like has been already said.....put the sub(s) where it's(they) is(are) most effective.

A couple of years ago, I discovered after a suggestion from a professional equipment installer that my two 18 inch JBL subs were most effective 8 feet apart with the speakers facing each other. The results was overwhelming. Maybe just one of those flukes but never the less that made the difference.

Bottom line.....it's a crap shoot. There is NO single answer. Every room is different.

Thank you guys. First the wiring and then the walls. I will put up pictures later.