BalancedForce placement question

[msimanyi]

I have a new pair of BF210 subs, and I've been breaking them in for the past half-week. I'd like to run ARC on them now, but before doing that I've been searching online for any specific placement instructions for these unique subs.

So far, I've found zip.

Most subs have a single woofer, perhaps a port, and the driver can be either down- or front-firing. Clearly the BF subs differ in that they have two side-firing drivers.

For those of you with BF subs, did you experiment with a "twist" to the sub's position? Mine are both well off a side wall - the nearest on the right is about 8 feet - but after reading about room reflections, modes, the length of low frequency sound waves, etc. it occurred to me it *might* be smart to *not* place the back of the subs parallel to the wall... or it could be the worst thing possible.

Does anyone have any experience playing with this?

Mike

 

[msimanyi]

In case this is useful for anyone in the future, I ran ARC with the Perfect Bass Kit (PBK) microphone last night. I'm sure the subs are in need of more break-in time, but I'll redo all this in another month or two.

I tested the sub about 6" off the wall, both square and rotated perhaps 15 degrees. I also tried square and rotated with it about 12" off the wall and square about 20" off the wall. The rotation made a minor change in a room-induced dip around 40 Hz, but it was so minor I went with the square positioning for the aesthetics.

If I find different results after everything is full broken-in, I'll post about it.

 

[Jeff Zaret]

Mike,
I have an original Depth which has three 8"speakers instead of your two 10"s. I have place mine similar to yours about 8 feet from my "listening chair. It is in the middle of the wall on the right side. The left side is a sliding glass door! One of the tricks is to move it around until it disappears. OK, I know it is big and heavy but the closer you get to the corner the more it will basically "couple" with the corner and may give you too much boom and possibly loose some definition. I know there is a YouTube video from Martin logan on subwoofer placement because I have seen it. You may want to check it out. If you can get some of those moving sliders for furniture and put it under the sub it will be easy to move. Let us know how it turns out. Maybe I have just been doing this too long. lol

Good Luck

Jeff

 

[msimanyi]

Thanks Jeff.

The good news is that the current configuration corrects to flat from 20 Hz, though uncorrected the left unit still has the dip. (I’m using two BF210s.). I should note that uncorrected means post-PBK, pre-Marantz Audyssey.

I have plans to experiment more, and even to break out REW for some more in-depth data, but my location options are fairly limited and the room truly is horrible acoustically. No rugs, oak floors (caveat: as reclaimed barnwood that hasn’t been resurfaced, they’re quite textured), non-symmetric room, huge glass doors down the right wall that don’t have drapes… all add up to a less-than-ideal situation, but it’s what I have to work with.

It’s all a great learning opportunity!

 

[Jeff Zaret]

Mike,
Sounds like you are doing OK. a rug will help with some reflection (bounce) off the floor. A non-symmetrical room is actuall a bit better than a perfect square or rectangle type of room, in my opinion. I actually have no "back" wall in my room because it leads to the kitchen. I too have a glass wall-sliding door. I bought some inexpensive vertical blinds which help a bit. It is a journey and the best part is we enjoy the music along the way.