Two simple tips for Subwoofer placement

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Tonight I was looking up a spec on an old Jamo sub that I listed on Trademe and I came across two very simple yet effective images that help with tuning your subwoofer. They are maybe common knowledge to some, but I know we get asked a lot about what to do with the phase dial?

Before we get to Phase, a simple guide to room PLACEMENT:

We normally recommend by starting with position B in the picture to the left. And then play with the Phase – see below. If you can’t get enough bass or have too much boom from the sub then experiment with the other two positions. Easy. It’s worth while experimenting with both your front speakers connected and disconnected when placing the sub.

 

Once you’ve decided on the placement, the next step is to dial in the PHASE:

It really is this simple, with your front speakers connected play a familiar track with a consistent bass line, a track with a mix of deep and upper bass is best. Now, find a volunteer and ask them to slowly turn the phase dial backwards and forwards until you, seated in the listening position hear the bass the loudest. Once you have the spot, then adjust the level and cut off frequency so it blends with your front speakers.
For downfiring subwoofers this is often at 90 degrees, and for front firing subs where they are pointed the same direction as your front speakers, 0 or 180 degrees. It can help to increase the level slightly while setting the phase if your front speakers produce a decent amount of bass, once you’ve found the loudest spot, then drop the level back down again.

I hope those two tips might come in handy, and while we are talking about subs, did you see this insane deal on the THX Ultra certified Jamo D6 SUB – it’s a beast, 15″ driver in a sealed cabinet, tight deep bass. One of our reference subs.

Enjoy the bass! Oh and if you need a good track for setting up subs with, try this one (although try and get the CD or a FLAC).

 

 

 

Changes here at Stereotype

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Over the past week we’ve been having some interesting discussions around our product range and online retailing in general. There are obviously pro’s and con’s of online vs bricks and mortar business models, but in our opinion, online with demonstration facilities is the future for Hifi. This is our current business model – we have various places where we can demonstrate products properly, the majority of which is in our own homes on the display models we carry in stock. With some higher end gear, we accompany customers to the distributor demo rooms both in Auckland and Hamilton.

This week we were advised we could no longer sell 3 of our brands online – Marantz, B&W and Audioquest.

It’s actually been quite timely as we have been reviewing our product range with the view to narrow it anyway. This really just made the decision easy for us as these products no longer fit our business model. So, from now on we will no longer be representing these 3 brands.

While we will miss these brands, it will allow us to carry even more stock and focus on our other brands that actually are better value and priced more in line with overseas markets. Due to the local pricing structure for these brands, we lose a lot of sales offshore where products can often be acquired for less than our cost prices. This just isn’t workable in today’s environment where we compete globally, not just locally. This isn’t anything unique to the Hifi market, it is a general trend in retail at the moment due to current exchange rates – in fact there was an article in the Herald just this week.

So does this leave some gaps in our range? The obvious one is Home Theatre Receivers, and we will have an announcement soon on this one. In the meantime, we still do have two very capable receivers from Cambridge Audio.

And we can announce now that Stereotype will be picking up QED cables once again to replace Audioquest (we used to sell QED and both Tiens and I still run some QED cables in our reference systems). Otherwise, Wireworld cables are still available which we highly recommend and use in our reference systems too – we just like having two cable brands for you to choose between.

Thanks for your support and we look forward to the future continuing to provide you with expert advice, quality demonstrations and customer service that exceeds your expectations.

Cheers
Brendan & Tiens

Starting Out – Music or Movies?

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Too Many Choices By cwgoodroe on FlickrChoosing a Hifi can be a daunting experience, when you look at the sheer number of products available from one brand alone it is easy to get confused, let alone comparing multiple different electronics brands, with numerous speaker brands and ranges… We often get asked for advice, and that is what we are here for, that is our job as a retailer, to find an ideal system for the customers need to “Get more out of the music (& movies) you love”. We find customers usually start with a budget in mind and come to us asking for a recommendation. Its great to have a budget but we tend to put this to one side until we get a little more information out of the customer.

The first question we ask is: Is this a music system, a movie system or does it need to do both?

The reason this is the most important question is that many systems can adequately reproduce movie sound tracks because that is mostly high freq effects and upper bass from explosions, for movies quantity is more important than quality and such sytems will struggle to make music sound like, well music! Because for music, you need quality more than anything else…especially at lower listening levels.

This is normally the case with sub/satellite systems, where the satellite speakers cannot reproduce midrange frequencies very well, and it is these frequencies that make the guitars in Smells like Teen Spirit sound like real guitars. With technology advancements small speaker design is enabling greater frequency response from these satellites, but sometimes you just can’t compete with Physics!Unless you’re are auditioning home theatre subwoofers, I always advise customers to use Music to compare speakers and amps etc. Because music has it all, it show cases tone, something that makes a male voice sound like a male voice, not a chipmunk. It’s tone that makes bass sound tuneful, rather than boomy, i.e. you should be able to hear every note the bass player is playing, not just boom boom boom every time he plays a string, regardless of the note.

The most important thing you can do when auditioning Hifi is use Music tracksthat you are familiar with. If you come and talk to us, sure we will play you some of our favourite music but lets be honest, we won’t play you something that is going to sound bad on the system! We like great sound so it’s natural for us to play something that showcases the best of what the system can do. If you’re a massive Celine Dion fan then bring along Celine,  if you’re a massive System of a Down fan then break out Chop Suey.  I think you get it.

The other reason I suggest music for auditioning is that if you are happy with the music performance of a system, I’ll almost guarantee that you’ll be happy with the movie performance too.  Ok again I’ll separate subwoofers from this, as for home theatre it’s pretty much bigger the better (amplifier power, driver size and cabinet volume), whereas for music you’ll want to be looking for bass slam and tightness, and seamless integration with their other speakers and here its best to go for sealed enclosure type sub with a quality driver.

We hope these tips help in your quest for great sound, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you don’t know where to start drop us an email or give us a call on 09 473 5009, its free!