Sub - OK to put on carpet, or should it be on something more solid? (1 Viewer)

[Hap C]

The title says it all. I have an NHT sub, currently sitting on fairly dense, high quality wall to wall carpet and pad, underneath of which is concrete. [My home theater is in the lower level of my home.] A friend says the sub is not performing as well as it could since it sits on carpet, and recommended that I cut out the carpet in the form of the sub, and put the sub directly on the concrete. Or, alternatively, at least put a piece of heavy slate on top of the carpet, and the sub on top of that. My sub is not down-firing, the woofer is pointed out the front of the unit.

Any other obsessives out there who have gone down this road? If so, what were your results?

Thanks.

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

I'm not sure you should go directly to something that drastic.
Personally, I don't think you'll hear that much of a difference. You could start with something like spikes. I did that a few weeks ago.
Here's what it used to look like:

Here's it with a set of

 

[Hap C]

Hadn't thought of spikes. They look pretty neat. What are they made of, and where did you get them? More importantly, did it make much of a difference in sound?

Thanks.

 

[James Zos]

The cheapest spikes you can get are furniture spikes. Any hardware store should have them for a couple of bucks. I put my downward firing sub on a ceramic tile and attached furniture spikes to the sub. Seemed to improve the sound somewhat, though not a night and day difference for me.

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

It did seem to improve the sound, but it's definitely not a big difference. They costed me $19.95 plus ship.
Dayton Audio Black Chrome Speaker Spikes


I liked the wide, well built cones. They do have cheaper ones though. Simple spikes there are $2.50 per set of 4:
3/8" Spikes, set of 4
I'm not sure if these would be the best choice for something as substantial as a sub though.

Then again, I did use em on my 80 lb towers.

 

[Richard Greene]

Carpet / padding is just about sonically invisible to bass frequencies under 80Hz. There are some premium pads made with closed cell foam that will absorb a little upper bass frequencies -- but I wonder whether this would be audible.

Assuming your subwoofer is heavy enough to compress the carpet so the enclosure can not move, you will have no audible effect from the carpet (it will protect the sub's enclosure from scratches).

If you have a lightweight subwoofer enclosure made with a cardboard tube and a thick carpet/padding that allows the enclosure to "rock" when you poke it with your finger, you can use spikes through the carpet to stabilize the enclosure (or rubber pads on a wood floor). Otherwise, there is no proof from controlled testing that spikes will make an audible difference when used under any stable speakers ... although many audiophiles might imagine they hear a difference after buying spikes (that's human nature).
They'll swear to hearing a difference ... and swear at me ... but hearing false (imagined) differences is very common in audio.