Will an unused Sub in the room suck up bass?

Shadowfax

Shadowfax

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In my secondary setup, I had an unused sub on a platform used as a speaker stand for 1 speaker, the other was on the AV cabinet at same height.

I have been wanting to add the sub to my ZVOX unit in the bedroom for a while but did not want to buy a pair of stands to use 1. Yesterday I stopped by Target and picked up 2 simple solid wood 24" bar stools and replaced the sub platform with the stool. I took the sub upstairs and started playing some disks.

I am using a slick older set of JM Labs speakers with a front slotted port that are not the best for low bass. If I didn't know any better, I would say the overall bass response got much better without the one speaker sitting on the unused sub.

Do other speakers in same room that are not being used suck some of the sound out of the ones used?
 
Any unused speaker in a room affects the sound. Usually it will smear and confuse the music.

A speaker is designed to vibrate - and they will vibrate either by the magnet or sound waves in the room. Any time it's vibrating - it's making a sound however small.

This is why for the best 2 ch systems you would never never have it in the same room as a theater system. Not that you can always have the best situation.

This goes for anything that likes to resonate - like an acoustic guitar.
 
Try it this way Bob, what affects sound! It's not what you can see/hear, it's what you are seeing/hearing.
 
This is one big reason the speakers you demo and buy never sound the same as when they were in the room with 10 other pairs :)

Anyway, enjoying the sound from my old JMs in this little setup.

OPPO93>Hafler 945>Odyssey Stratos>JM Labs Tantal 509 via all Tara Labs cables.
 
This is very true. I head a pair of Sasha's for the first time in an essentially empty room. The 2nd time I came back for a more in-depth listen, there was a pair or Meridian DSP7200's next to them. I immediately pointed out that the bass was obnoxiously boomy. My dealer looked at me sideways, but obliged me and we moved them out of the room. Immediately, he said to me, "you're absolutely right. I don't know how I didn't pick up on that." (I don't know either as he's got an incredible ear, but I digress).

Anything in the room, especially a cavity that absorbs energy waves (like a subwoofer that's turned off) can affect sound perception.

Bryan

Shadowfax said:
This is one big reason the speakers you demo and buy never sound the same as when they were in the room with 10 other pairs :)

Anyway, enjoying the sound from my old JMs in this little setup.

OPPO93>Hafler 945>Odyssey Stratos>JM Labs Tantal 509 via all Tara Labs cables.
Click to expand...
 
Bob,

I am only talking about a stereo setup with flat tone controls. No compensation.

But now I think I know why my Clearfields don't sound to me the way they do to others who describe deeper bass. I have the rest of a HT setup with idle speakers in the same room and a bigger sub.
 
Bob

Room correction or not, the extra speakers will affect the sound.

People spend thousands on room treatments but forget about the extra speakers in their room.
 
I have read and heard from audio room experts that having a lot of extra unused speakers in a room does negatively effect the sound. Like a bad piece of furniture because the cones interact with sound waves. I was storing speakers under table and was told to get them out of the room.
 
the professor said:
Any unused speaker in a room affects the sound. Usually it will smear and confuse the music.

A speaker is designed to vibrate - and they will vibrate either by the magnet or sound waves in the room. Any time it's vibrating - it's making a sound however small.

This is why for the best 2 ch systems you would never never have it in the same room as a theater system. Not that you can always have the best situation.

This goes for anything that likes to resonate - like an acoustic guitar.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, not only that, but placing speakers on a cabinet will dramatically effect bass response, etc. as does height, distance from wall and a host of other things everyone already knows. Funny, I used to put my old towers up on open end wood boxes exactly the same and in my case it improved the sound because of the speakers I was using at the time. I tightened the bass a bit by storing my records in the cabinets below the speakers believe it or not. (still not great sound because of cheap speakers though. oh well, that's what I had at the time).

I live in a place now that does not allow a sub by both lease and room design, so I took it out of the room and put it in a closet. My towers go pretty damn low as they is anyway (perhaps not enough for movies effects and such, but enough for music which is more important to me personally). However, I can well imagine the problems I would have on top of the already non-solvable existing ones I have in the room had I left my sub sitting in it. No thanks, things are hard enough.
 
If you have acoustic measurement software (REW, XTZ, etc.) it should be fairly easy to test the hypothesis that extra unused speakers affect the sound.
 
NorthStar said:
Ok, try this Kev: In my room there are eleven speakers, but sometimes only two are on.
Do the nine other ones that are off affect the overall sound? :notreally:
Click to expand...
Bob the reference was look at it in another light. When something is designed to move in miniscule amounts like a speaker to reproduce sound in a (this application), push-pull variant, sound which in this instance = energy & introducing this energy into the cabinet or the diaphragm then you tell me, do speakers still produce energy out of phase or quite simply when they are active? Even if from a reflected source
What most make the mistake of doing is to think that since it is not seen the energy of sound seems to magically dissipate into nothing the moment it leaves the speaker, it doesn't, it's energy & if you propel it at something that vibrates & is cavernous, what do you think will happen?
 
radioactive said:
This is very true. I head a pair of Sasha's for the first time in an essentially empty room. The 2nd time I came back for a more in-depth listen, there was a pair or Meridian DSP7200's next to them. I immediately pointed out that the bass was obnoxiously boomy. My dealer looked at me sideways, but obliged me and we moved them out of the room. Immediately, he said to me, "you're absolutely right. I don't know how I didn't pick up on that." (I don't know either as he's got an incredible ear, but I digress).

Anything in the room, especially a cavity that absorbs energy waves (like a subwoofer that's turned off) can affect sound perception.

Bryan
Click to expand...

I totally agree with that, and that was my first thought of Bryan's first original post; but I wasn't 100% sure.
And I brought DSP Room EQ into the equation, to compensate for the fact. But most audiophile stereo people aren't into DSP Room EQ.
...Yet. ...And complicated when someone has only an analog TT source in his rig (or/and a R-2-R tape deck). ...Still feasible, but not without few compromises. ...Worth it? ...Only in the mind and ears of the beholder.
 
The easiest way to mitigate the negative effects of non driven speakers in a room is to short the terminals; the back emf with literally put a brake on the cone's motion. FWIW
 
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