Home Subwoofer guide

A Home subwoofer is the beating heart of superb home theater or sound systems. A subwoofer will make a move explosion rumble like you are standing just next to the blast zone and the deepest bass of your favorite music touch your soul. Without a home subwoofer, you simply aren't going to get the real impact of movies, music or video game effects.

So how do subwoofers do their thing? What are subwoofers anyway? A subwoofer is a complete loudspeaker generally from 8" to 21" in diameter with a woofer mounted in a well braced enclosure. Early home subwoofers were created in the 1960s to enhance the bass of the home stereo systems of the day. Subwoofers are specialized speakers designed to reproduce only the lowest register of audible frequencies for your home theater or high end audio system. Typical frequency ranges are 35-200 Hz for consumer products, below 100hz for professional live sound and less than 80 for THX systems.

With modern 5.1 surround sound, the engineer mixing the audio can route bass intensive effects and sounds to the subwoofer, which allows your other speakers to concentrate on the rest of the range and produce a much cleaner sound. That means your home subwoofer is getting audio mixed and mastered only for it.

Home subwoofer types

There are two basic types of home subwoofers: passive and powered. Which is right for you will depend on the power available to your amplifier..

Passive home subwoofer

Passive subwoofers are powered by an external amplifier shared with the other speakers in your system. The key limitiation here is the power supply. Producing low frequency sounds requires more electicity. If your amplifier can't provide enough juice, producing extreme bass might drain the amp for other sounds.

Powered home subwoofer

Powered subwoofers solve the power problem by having their own amplifier in a combined speaker/amplifier configuration. This allows the characteristics of the amplifier and subwoofer to match and complement each other.

Other variations

Alternate home subwoofer specifications include front firing which uses a speaker mounted to radiate the sound from the front; down-firing which sends the sound downwards; ports which force out air as a way to increase bass response; and passive radiators to make the sound more precise.

With all the different technical specifications of home subwoofers available, there will be a type which exactly matches the room you want to put it in and your preferences. Experiment with your subwoofer by placing it in various parts of the room until you find the sweet spot that works for you. Good home subwoofers will have room correction software and a configuration microphone which can optimize the settings for you and even help you choose where to best put the subwoofer.