Bass AMP

How to Get Great Bass Throughout Your Home Theater
Executive Summary By Steve Faber

It's one of the hallmarks of a fantastic home theater; great bass. What too many people get is either weak, anemic bass or boomy bass that sounds like mud. In many cases you'll have pretty good bass at one seat and little or no bass at other seats. Usually that makes the bass even more bloated and boomy. How can you get bass that sounds great for slam-bam action movies and also for music? Is that $800.00 subwoofer you got a total loss?

The good news is that you can get great bass in your home theater, and probably at every seat too! Your sub needs to be appropriately sized for its intended duty. If your home theater is larger, say 27' x 17' x 10', especially if it is a multi use room that is open to the rest of the house on one or more sides, you'll need a larger sub than if your room is small. To make bass you need to move the air in the room. If your room is larger, your sub must move more air to get the same effect as it would in a smaller room.

In the old days, when comparing subs from good manufacturers, you could just look at the size of the subwoofer cone and the power of its amp. Most subwoofers used similar designs, either a bass reflex (ported) or acoustic suspension (sealed) box. Most quality subwoofer drivers had somewhat similar excursion specifications. Now, with the advent of high power digital amplification and super long throw drivers, things are a bit more difficult.

Most manufacturers will have recommendations about which of their subs to use in a given room size.

Now for the biggest key to getting great bass in your home theater; use multiple subwoofers. According to some of the latest research, the way multiple subwoofers interact with the room is the single biggest factor in being able to get great bass in every seat of your home theater. One of the biggest problems in small room acoustics is caused by standing waves. These are created when the wavelengths (or ½ or ¼ wavelengths) of certain frequencies coincide with one or more room dimensions.

Standing waves cause certain frequencies to be reinforced and cancelled at different locations throughout the room. These problem frequencies are known as room modes. For even better bass and smoother frequency response throughout your home theater, use four subwoofers.

Using the correct subwoofers for your room and using multiple subwoofers with a good equalizer will help you get that spectacular bass your home theater has been missing.