Bass from my home subwoofers is NOT non directional???

Question

I thought low frequency effects are supposed to be Non directional? I can hear exactly where the bass is coming from?? I have the subwoofer in the corner of the room?

Answer 1

The only way to tell if bass is really non directional is by using pure test tones.  Ordinary sounds rarely contain only bass--higher frequencies are included, they are the  overtones of the bass sounds.  Those higher frequencies will provide a "location" for the bass (from the stereo effect of the other speakers);  you will get the illusion of bass placement, but that comes from the higher frequency components.  The overtones "stick" to the bass notes and the ear identifies the tone as one bass tone.  Even the attack onset of a pure tone contains high frequencies that can give your ear clues to the bass location.

So what is really meant when it is said that bass is non-directional, is that the placement of the subwoofer will not affect the apparent location of the bass (unless higher frequencies are emitted by it).  However, that does not mean location is not important; it is extremely critical for subwoofers, determining loudness and uniformity of the bass.  Generally, a non-symmetric location near a wall gives the best results.

Answer 2

The fact that a subwoofer is "omnidirectional" is a myth--even if you  have the crossover set to 80 - 50 hz lowpass! The exception to this is that it only applies to having one subwoofer placed in a corner area of a home theater environment because, the subwoofer's deep bass sound is passing from one fix location on to the listener(s), thus recognizing the listener(s) fix location (the seating area, center of the home theater enviroment) where the majority of the deep frequencies is occuring. This only occures variably though. Multiply (usually and preferably 4 spread out along the front wall) subwoofers will hender this problem since you are getting deep bass acoustics passing "evenly" from their (subwoofers) locations on to the listener(s) fix location.

Answer 3

This is a myth.

A LOT of subwoofer sound hits you by wall-reflections in your room creating the illusion of being non-directional.

Follow the other answers guidelines for sub placement because just moving the sub to a 1/3 or 2/5 position along a wall can smooth out the reflections in the room giving you smoother, less directional sound.

Using a SPL meter to level-adjust your sub with the other speakers also helps.