SubZone Subwoofer Placement Optimizer App Now Available

British start-up Sonic Baume has launched SubZone – a mobile app that finds the optimum position for a subwoofer in the room using acoustic simulation. Once the user enters some simple details about the room and listening position, the app predicts the effect of room modes for every possible position of the subwoofer. It then presents a heatmap of the room showing where the user should aim to put the subwoofer, and where to avoid placing it.

This article examines the problem of subwoofer placement in odd-shaped rooms, exploring corner locations of subwoofers and some pros and cons of single-woofer versus dual-woofer systems for a given placement within a listening room. In the article, the author extends the analysis and actually generates the “room contribution” curves for a non-rectangular room. This article was originally published in audioXpress, September 2002.