Ecoustics’ Robert Silva dives into the basics of subwoofers and what you need to know.

In order to experience great sound in a speaker setup, you need speaker drivers that provide clarity, depth, and the ability to provide a full range of audio frequencies. Tweeters are designed to handle high frequencies, the Midrange driver handles the frequencies associated with vocals, while a Woofer handles the low frequencies. This is referred to as a three-way speaker.

Many times, especially for compact speakers, the midrange and woofer are combined into a single speaker (aka a 2-way speaker). More on 2-way vs 3-way speakers.

What a Subwoofer Is

For movies and bass-heavy music, a woofer may not be able to reproduce all of the low frequencies. To provide more sonic impact (hearing and feeling), you need a subwoofer which is a specific type of speaker that handles only the lowest frequencies that other speakers can’t reproduce.

In what is considered a basic surround sound system (5.1 channels), there are five main speakers: Left, Center, Right, Left Surround, and Right Surround. In addition, a  subwoofer is assigned to reproduce low frequencies (usually below 120Hz). The subwoofer is associated with the .1 channel. 

Tip: The role of the subwoofer is the same regardless of how many channels and speakers are in the rest of your system. 

This article originally appeared at ecoustics.com and an intro has been published here with permission.

Read the full article: https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/subwoofer-setup-tip-tricks/

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