New house, sugg on where to try Subs first? (1 Viewer)

[Geoff L]

Ideas, suggestions....
Im posting for my brother and his new about to be finished home. Never delt with an open floor plan and very high roof line.
Basicly the whole house is open to the liveing room. Well, all but the bedroom, {main floor}, the door can be shut. The home is about 1850sq floor space. The HT/liveing room is all the way to the back, and is open to the kitchen, dinning, hall to laundry, and bedroom. Above being open to the second story with a sitting room looking down and french doors, oppsite side, opening into the large master bedroom and bath. The HT/living room back wall runs the full width of the house, 30ft and goes stright up 27ft to the roof line above, where it takes off flat heading the oppsite direction 20ft back toward the master bedroom, then begins a angle heading down eventually ending at the edge of the 10ft high 2-1/2 stall garage.
I hope you can get some mental picture of the layout. {Definitly not good at explaining this}
So where might be a good place to start with the subs? Being all open like this with the ceiling being so high, and eveything open, I dont have a clue. I thought the corner on the long wall and just start moving and measuring. Well, given his antisapated furniture layout, this very corner is out, as the RPTV would apear {at this time} to occupy this spot. So why not go to the other corners long wall and start there. Wrong, this is the dinning room area and SAF says no way.
Its a big area to fill spl wise, but thats not the concern at this time, it's more a dead-zone liveing room thing maybe?
More like nodes up and down, and slammen bass everywhere but in the liveing room where he'd want it!
So a little long winded, but I've seen a few post talk of house layouts similar, and hopeing that some of you might have delet with this allready and have some starting place ideas? We, that is he and I, dicussed this a little allready, and agreed, this could be a bitch trying to make the room work for sound and furniture layout. Im stumpped and not looking foward to setting this rig up. There is two racks full of equip, 150 gal salt water tank, 2 Natuzzi sofas 4 tower speaks ect ect. Though the room looks pretty damn big now, when we start hauling thier stuff in and start looking to lay things out, floor space will disapear fast. He has given this alot of thought, but has been stumped from the start of the building of the house!
Question is, can we get it all to work! You know, room lay out, sound system, and a nice look.
Don't spank him for not haveing this all figured out, ~{we all wish we could have the perfect house for HT}~ but hunting is his love, and HT he just really started to getting into in the last year,,,,, AFTER plans where allready drawn for the house!!!
So any ideas people,,,,, might this be a case where coupled subs help spl but uncoupled could work for better in room responce?
Looking foward to your ideas,
Geoff
Edit-
Well thought I was in hardware when I posted, my bad,

Might see more response thier... Admin---feel free to move!!!
Thanx
Geoff
[Edited last by Geoff L on November 15, 2001 at 07:16 PM]

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Geoff,
Actually, this probably won’t be as bad as you think. I have a 2000 sq. ft. one-story house with an open design and cathedral living room ceiling, which puts the home theater system filling some 6200 cubic ft. of air space. I have only two 12” Shiva subs, and they get the job done just fine.
The layout description you gave is a little hard to follow—guess you have to be there, as they say. However, it doesn’t matter; the acoustic laws are the same no matter what the room. Bottom line, corner placement is preferable. The best sub performance will be in a corner with uninterrupted walls (i.e., no doorway openings, etc) in both directions. If that’s not possible, the one where the opening is furthest away is best. If there is a corner with a normal ceiling above it (i.e., doesn’t open to the second floor) that would also be preferable.
As you note, “coupled” subs deliver the best SPL. However, they usually deliver the best response, too. More oft than not, separating subs leads to increased problems—ragged response and cancellation at certain distance-related frequencies.
With corner placement expect measurements to reveal one or two response peaks. These can be tamed with a parametric equalizer. Forget what you’ve heard about moving a sub around the room looking for that “magic” spot. That’s for people who don’t have an equalizer for their subs. What happens is they settle for response characteristics they can live with at the expense of SPL level and extension. EQ the sub and then you can have it all: The highest SPL levels, the lowest extension, and the smoothest response.
It sounds like your brother has already ruled out the two best corners. Well, he can’t have his cake and eat it, too. He will have to decide what is most important, aesthetics or performance.
What’s this about the TV being in the corner? Is he planning a 45-degree layout? I hope not. Those are usually pretty lame—it’s very difficult to get optimal speaker placement at all locations, especially the rear.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
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My Equipment List

 

[Geoff L]

Wayne,
Thanks for attempting to follow the garbled mess that I posted.
Yes it's one of those 45 degree jobs! The house floor plan layout might force it. He is insistant that he be able to have a full view of the entire backyard ~{all woods}~ from his sitting-listening position...

right!
This is the {his} plan, but problems on the layout are forseen by me allready. At best it might work, but I think once it's {in rough set up} and we try it out, his mind might begin to change.

Your posting of good resuts encourge me as I've never been in an open foor HT system and have no idea what to expect. I had/have this idea that all the bass would be slammen in parts of the house, while the seating area is, lets say just bland. It's good to know things are working at least for you.
I apreciate your input Wayne as you've help me before in other areas. {EQ,s} ... Very helpfull!!
He has a 3 ~ 12 band eqs with subsonic filters {used in line for all HT channels, but if serious Bass problems arise, thier use as you know will be very limited. He also is running dual sealed Shivas like you and I. His are in 2 cubic ft cabs sealed with PE #300-794 ~ 250 watt plate amps with boost removed and replaced about 2db at around 20hz. They sound pretty decent and sould do well enough for his taste in ~{SPL}~ even in the bigger area of thier new home. He's not a huge volume guy, likes it med and clean.
Well it wont be long and we will be attemping the set up, and I allready plan to bring my BFD over thier with me. More than likely he will own one also by the time where done..
Thanks again for the encourgement, as this gives me hope for a project that he elected me to, that I've been dreading ever sence asked.
Once he gets into the house and set up, he will be joining the forum. From then on, it's his own game as they say. It's bad for us as we both are Web-tv user and cant post pics. Once it's done maybe he can takes some pics and have someone else load them up. He's got friends at work that have all the goodies... Then you can see the beautiful mess I was trying to describe!! He dose have a beautiful home, and I do envey him very much. He has worked so hard to have it and I hope that the system {when finally done} works as well as the home looks.
Thanks again Wayne,
Geoff

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks for the kind words, Geoff.
Actually the high ceiling does kind of concern me. Part of me says “It’s just space—that’s all that matters, it doesn’t matter how it’s shaped.” Another part says “The height could make a difference.” However, it seems to make sense that the longer the distance in all direction from the sub, horizontal and vertical, the smoother natural (unequalized) response should be. I may be wrong about this, but it really doesn’t matter--after all, that’s what the equalizer is for.
I am confident however, that it won’t be the disaster you are fearing! It might not be as good as I think it will be, but I’m sure it’s not going to be as bas as “ the bass be slammin’ in parts of the house, while the seating area is, lets say just bland.” If not, I’m glad I’m a few thousand miles away from you.

Well it won’t be long and we will be attempting the set up, and I already plan to bring my BFD over their with me. More than likely he will own one also by the time where done.

If he’s smart he will!
Maybe he could put the sub behind the RPTV? After all, there has to be some space behind it. Maybe he could just pull the TV out a little further. Could make everyone happy – you, the performance freak and the wife as well. After all, out of sight, out of mind…
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
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My Equipment List

 

[Geoff L]

Yes, behind the RPTV has been thoght of and this is a possibility....
The RPT set will have to come out of the corner for sure to look right, and there should be enough room to stack both subs. I think the best corner would be the oposite end of the room {just speculation at this point} but that has been ruled off limits period........!
Ive just got a feeling that this is not going to work out well {bass wise}. Room respose is never fun, well I guess it is some times, but I just think where gona have the dead zone in the sitting area. You might wonder why i seem so persistent to keep on with the dead zone thing.?
Well, while finishing the house he brought up a junk stereo that goes in the garage and used it for music while building and finishing the house. Eventually it came iside, and while this is far from the system, it gave me some idea of what was going on with the bass. Now certainly the house was empty and once the furniture, wall coverings, floor covering, ect are in thier, It will help with acoustic but I think for the bass thing it gave me a pretty good idea of what was going to happen.
Aha, thats cheating you say, yeh kinda.
His room seems to suffer suck out real bad. Now I didnt experiment at all, the 3-way 15" speaks sat near and on the long wall in the HT/liveing room. They where away from the corner a good 5-6 ft. The bass sucked bad in the room, but as you walked out and into the kitchen it got stronger and as you walked down the hall a little stronger and then to the door where it seemed to go bland again. The same happened as you walked up the stairs, but as you walked into the sitting room it got very boomy. The same when walking into the master bedroom, very boomy... Now I know this surely dosnt define what going to happen but at the same time I think it's giveing some idea of what his open floor plan is doing with the long bass waves and it's not good.
I envision these subs up stairs in the sitting/office room or something crazy like that.

Things maybe very differnt than what I expect once the real subs go into the corner, but suck out, I think is going to be a problem... We will see, though im still leary of good in room bass responce. Hence, the slammen bass responce in the rest of the house. I would have liked to have experimented with placeing the speaks around the room, but while building finishing the house he had so much going on at that time it just wasnt a priority at the time.... It did matter as two days later, after I had been thier helping while covertly listen to room responce bass, some little shit heads broke in and stole the stereo.
Man, it seems no matter where you live your not safe. The house is nearly 7 miles into the country from the city. Most of his best friends havent even been thier. Insurance covered it, but still it pisses him off as the stereo was his first as a teenager. Nothing special but you know what I mean.
Well he's saying around the end of the month he thinks for install. So we shall see if bass can be had in front of the RPTV while sitting. {I}, definitly have my reservations on this issue!!! Those high ceilings scare the shit out of me bass wise.....
Regards
Geoff

 

[Cees Alons]

Geoff,

There's a simple trick to find the best place for a sub in any room. It depends on the non-directionality of the lowest frequencies.

Temporarily place the sub where your listening centre is, i.e. in the owners chair (or whatever place is going to be the "main" seat). Now play some typical music (preferably different and various sound tracks). Walk around to listen where the bass sounds optimal, keeping your ears a bit lower than normal (i.e. about at the normal height of the sub would be the best).

If that place cannot be chosen as the subs definite place, choose from the alternatives you do allow. Where you (and your brother) think the bass is optimal, that's where the sub should be!

Good luck.

Cees