Really weird Bermuda Triangle

[Surtsey]

I've been experimenting with small subs for a while. The results have been largely disappointing. I've adjusted port-sizes, experimented with damping, swapped drivers, nothing seems to hit the spot.

My regular sub blew a fuse today so I put in on the bench to repair it. After changing the fuse I tested it. It sounded like ****.

This troubled me.

I returned the sub to its regular spot, sounded great again. Further tests revealed my workbench is the Bermuda triangle of bass. In that particular spot in the room a 24" bass driver will sound like a transistor radio. I cringe when I think of all the projects I have abandoned or destroyed because they were never tested off the bench.

I've no idea why this phenomenon occurs. It could be the steel frame or the gaps between shelves but nothing placed will produce any bass.

 

[rayma]

It's normal to have nodes and antinodes in any room. Just move around, and the bass
will be somewhere else, sometimes even in a different room.

 

[GM]

Definitely 'sounds' like it's in a deep, broadband room null and since it's setting on a lossy workbench it's probably a floor/ceiling mode, so try setting it on the floor.

GM

 

[djn]

I worked at home for 10 years. I had a pair of fostex 124 drivers in vented cabs on my desk and drive them with a Decware Zen amp. Great sounding system but no bass. I bought a 12" sub and nowhere in the room did I hear the sub, but......my wife heard it in every room in the house.

I eventually returned the sub and bought 4 8" subs. That worked very well.

 

[rayma]

By the reciprocity theorem, you could have placed the 12" subwoofer at one of the bass antinodes
elsewhere in the house. Then you would have heard that same bass back at the desk.