Placement of the Subwoofer
One of the most common reasons to buy a subwoofer is to augment your existing loudspeakers when they do not provide enough bass for your liking. In general, the S2/12t is used to augment surround or rear channel speakers in a multi-channel system, and would be placed in a room corner closest to the surround/rear channel that you are going to augment. In this case, you should also connect the LFE input of the S2/12t to the LFE/Subwoofer output of your processor (or daisy- chained from the nearest Genesis subwoofer with an LFE output).
Since the S2/12t has speaker-level inputs for left and right channels, you can place a single sub against the back wall between the two rear speakers of your multi-channel system. If you are using a 7.1-channel system, the S2/12t’s dual inputs can also be connected so as to augment both surround and rear channels.
If you are using only one S2/12t for just the LFE channel, place it in one corner of the room. Try all available corners and pick the one that sounds best. Note that corner placement of a subwoofer excites EVERY bass mode in your room, the good, the bad, as well as the ugly. In a very well designed room, this may be the ideal placement. In a badly designed room, this could be a nightmare.
A useful excel spreadsheet can be found on the Stereophile Guide to Home Theater’s website at www.guidetohometheater.com. “The Sweet Spot” about 2/3 of the way down the page, has the spreadsheet to check the acoustics of your room.
Adjusting the Controls
Locate the spec sheet for your existing main L/R loudspeakers, and adjust the Low Pass frequency on the S2/12t so it matches the –3dB point of your L/R speaker’s frequency response (If you can’t find that the -3dB frequency, set the S2/12t to 63Hz – the 12 o’clock position on the knob). For speakers of general sensitivity, the Bass Gain and LFE Gain can also be set at the 12 o’clock position.
Note: Should your woofer amplifier unexpectedly turn off and you are unable to turn it back on, you may have overheated or over-driven the amplifier. It can take up to thirty minutes for the amplifier to turn back on. Be patient. The two most common causes for this are poor ventilation and too much amplifier gain (ie, the amp is being driven too hard). If the amplifier is well ventilated and it still shuts down then you may have the volume control turned up too high. Refer to the section on increasing the low frequency response of your speakers without turning up the volume control.
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