Eliminating a dead zone with my PSW350

[setzer808]

Well, I must admit ever since I gota clearance/open-box deal on my PSW-350 I've been in HT (and Music) heaven. With one small problem however... My home-theater room is about 13x22 ft and the location of my chair (the 5.1 sweet spot) had a HUGE bass drop due to reflections/standing waves. The sub was about 3.5 feet from the front wall and 1 foot from the left wall beside a couch. The room was pumped with excellent bass in every place except MY CHAIR!

The Solution: I have couch parallel with the left wall. The sub was near the end of the couch nearest the front wall. I decided...hmmm....why not use an extender on my cable and put the sub on the other side of the couch....the one nearer me. BIG DIFFERENCE. Now I hear the bass I dreamed of. My friends are blown away too. The sweetspot is now my chair and all the other seats in the room. My room demands a dead-zone somewhere....now that spot is in a small area directly front of the tv screen (where no one would be sitting anyway!).

Moral of the story...if you have a rectangular room and your sweet spot is lacking in bass...try moving that sub and putting that dead-zone where it doesn't touch any of your seating. :-)

[Dr. Spec]

Excellent advice to pass on. I think often people think the solution to their problems is to buy more/better gear instead of getting the most out of what they already own through a little know-how and a time spent experimenting.

[STUFFMD]

Way to go Setzer, I have had my 350 for about a year now, in a room wth similar dimensions, I had to tweek the placement as you did, but now it's perfect, I love the unit I think it matches well with my 800's. I say all this because some poeple on this site have downed the 350 in past. For the money as most Polk equipment, I find it hard to beat.
Enjoy. Stuff

[Avidfan]

Thank you for your post setzer. Reading it inspired me to try expeimenting with the location of my sub, and I found that just by moving it from the front left corner to the deeper front right corner of the room, I got much stronger and more dynamic bass response and substantially reduced unwanted vibrations from objects in the room. Overall it just sounds a lot cleaner. Good deal!

Jason:D

[setzer808]

Glad my post has helped others. Just doing my small part

[rs159]

You are lucky you figured out how to control the null zone. My room is (gasp) 10'x 11' x 8'. That's right folks, almost a perfect cube. Ugh...

[setzer808]

eeeek....u live in a mini-Borg. U have my most heartful-sympathy.

[rs159]

Thanks. What makes is worse is it's a bedroom. That means a bed, listening chair, nightstand, equipment rack, 2 dressers, a subwoofer, and 2 speakers on stands have to be creatively crammed in to that itty bitty space. In fact, i've been moving things around for about the 20th time now and I'm just taking a break right now. :( So many madenning hours - wasted. That's why I'm moving everything to the basement. Much more hi-fi friendly. On the plus side, beds and dressers make good bass traps that don't actually look like bass traps. Not as effective as real traps, but it helps.