khenegar
Well-known member
what kind of material should i have under the down firing bass driver on my summits? now i have carpet under them since my whole room is carpeted! thanks
? on summit bass
- Thread starter khenegar
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Audiophile BS response: carpet gives you wooly bass. If you want cold hard slam, you need granite under there. If you want to retain the pure tones in the mid-bass, you need walnut (for darker sound) or maple (for cleaner, more open sound). /s 
Real talk: the material under the Summit’s down-firing woofer isn’t likely to have any audible effect on the sound of your speakers, so long as the floor isn’t vibrating. Room size and shape, speaker placement, and amount of bass trapping will all have multitudes greater impact on the sound.
Real talk: the material under the Summit’s down-firing woofer isn’t likely to have any audible effect on the sound of your speakers, so long as the floor isn’t vibrating. Room size and shape, speaker placement, and amount of bass trapping will all have multitudes greater impact on the sound.
hillbilly
Well-known member
What is the whole philosophy of having downward firing woofers? Ive never understood it. If you look at MLs best subs, the Balanced force, they dont fire downward.
Well, according to REL, a downward firing and a front firing woofer in combination is the best possible setup for a subwoofer. You can read about it here to understand their reasoning: Down Firing vs. Front Firing Subwoofer - Blog - REL
Thanks. That piece you linked makes sense. I did not know REL does that. ML decided to go all front firing in their flagship subs. My BF 210 sounds great.
I'd like to compare it to a similar priced REL.
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Well, obviously there’s a lot more to it than just which direction the drivers fire but it’s one piece of the puzzle. My Descent sounds pretty good to me (when set up well and properly integrated), and it has drivers firing in three different horizontal directions. I do like ML’s idea of balancing the drivers’ force against each other. Seems like they took lessons learned from the Descent models and applied them to the Balanced Force models. Ultimately, though, I think you can get much better subs for less money from the likes of Rythmik, PSA, and others.
But back to the topic at hand, I think the Summit’s woofers are superb and it’s an amazing speaker considering it’s original price point. Regardless of what kind of material is below the passive woofer.
It seems logical that you would want a flat surface under there to reflect the sound wave for the bass, and that carpet would absorb some of it? Maybe the carpet would diffuse certain wavelengths more than others?
I believe the bottom-firing sub is handling < 60Hz signals, which are non-directional, and long enough waveforms that carpet vs solid is not going to be a factor. As Rich noted above, placement relative to other room boundaries and overall room treatments will have a much more significant impact in that range.
Ok. So below 60 hz it doesnt matter if you have a carpet or something hard like hardwood or tile?
Overall for sound, isnt a short pile rug best for sound in a room? What flooring do you think is optimal for a home theater/listening room?
There is no one optimum. It depends on the rest of the room, the speakers, etc. Ideally, you want a good mix of absorption, diffusion, and natural reflection in a room. And you need different strategies to deal with higher frequencies vs. bass frequencies. First reflections off of speakers need to be treated, preferably with absorption. With cone speakers, this can include floor reflections. Which is why people often like a short pile rug, to absorb some of the higher frequencies from the floor first reflection. With ML panel speakers, this isn’t really an issue because the panel has little vertical dispersion. Side wall reflections are the problem with the curved panel. And the bass from the woofers isn’t going to be impacted much by carpet. So with ML’s, it really doesn’t matter that much what you have on the floor.
I guess then in a home theater like mine that has just electrostats up front in 3 speakers and then the other 8 speakers are cone, I would have higher frequencies bouncing off my hardwood floor. The atmos in the ceiling beam directly down at the floor, well the martin logans are at an angle. Wondering if the reflection off the floor for Atmos speakers is desired? Probably not.
First reflections off the floor, walls or ceiling are never desirable. Secondary reflections aren’t as much an issue. The reflections from the atmos speakers could definitely be blurring the sound, resulting in a decrease in the immersive effect of an atmos soundtrack.
What I figure too. Probably best off having carpet.
Gordon Gray
Well-known member
Best solution IMHO. Buy a couple of SUBDUDES from Amazon. Isolates bass from floor induced distortion and provides a firm surface under the driver. I believe that the surface below downward firing driver affects bass based on my personal experience with my REL sub in my current house. But what do I know. Cost $100 and change and if you don't like, you can always return for a full refund. The biggest bang for the buck is to adjust speaker tilt so it is vertical (perpendicular to the floor) and not tiled back.
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Rich covered the bases, and I concur. And yes, carpet would be recommended for your room.
