Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M22 vs. M60 for movies only

Everyone needs to keep in mind that low frequencies are non-directional. We humans are very good at pinpointing the location of high frequencies. But as the tone gets lower, it becomes harder for our brains to differentiate where the sound is coming from.

A subwoofer should only be producing these low, non-directional frequencies, which is why you should not able to pick out the voice being produced from the sub. Sure, you can go stand right next to the sub and hear/feel it producing bass and low tones, but from a normal seating position you shouldn't be able to pinpoint that it's coming from the sub.

If you can pinpoint the sub (i.e. male voices coming from the corner of the room rather than from the front soundstage), I'd bet that your crossover is too high or your system isn't calibrated properly. A sub should not bring attention to itself. I don't mean that it shouldn't be heard or felt. I just mean that it should compliment the main speakers and blend seamlessly into the sonic picture. It should not really stand out as another speaker.

With that in mind, I am absolutely positive that my sub is helping with the low frequencies of instruments and voices. James Earl Jones, pipe organs, explosions, etc. If I flip the sub off, it's immediately aparent. But those harmonics are too low to pinpoint as coming from the sub. They blend in with the rest of the speakers.

This is also why you can often pinpoint the location of a 'bass module' in a Bose system. By design, Bose uses a much higher crossover than is normally used between the cubes and the module. It depends on the speaker and system design, but usually systems crossovers are between 60hz and maybe 120hz. Sometimes a little lower, sometimes a little higher. But I believe that I've read that Bose systems are crossed over somwhere in the neighborhood of 250hz, which is well into the range where most can readily pinpoint the source. My biggest complaint with Bose systems is that they just don't paint a realistic soundstage because of this weird, high, and noticable crossover.