How Do Home Theater Subwoofers Differ From Ordinary Subwoofers?
Subwoofers are all Greek to many music and movie enthusiasts. Although, most people are able to tell what a subwoofer should do which is reproducing great bass, few people know what the actual difference between regular home subwoofers and home theater subwoofers is. Fortunately, at least car subwoofers do not require further explanations.
Stereo loudspeakers often suffer from subjectively unprecise or non-existing bass. One of the many reasons are room acoustic problems. Oftentimes, consumers place their speakers too far away from the rear wall, in corners or their rooms may have disadvantegeous geometric shapes and certain frequencies might get attenuated. In addition, our spouses play a dominant role when it comes to finding speaker placement. A dedicated subwoofer box can relieve these problems at least for the regions below 50 Hz. Because low frequencies are non-directional, you can even move your subwoofer into any corner, play around with the crossover settings and see how it works out. In many cases, the results are stunning. Another problem area is our understandable quest to find the smalles bookshelf speakers on the planet. These speakers are naturally unable to produce decent bass which would require larger woofer diameters and therefore a larger enclosure and internal volume. For a realistic live-performance of a concert or even a Steinway piano, you need a powerful bottom end which is why subwoofers primarily exist. After all, you want fidelity to the original.
By contrast, a home theater subwoofer is designed for enormous volume levels and earth-shaking effects although they are technically identical to normal subwoofers. Many DVD’s or Blue Ray movies contain frequencies in the below 30 Hz region which is close to the border of human hearing. This is a stressful job for the woofer and the built-in amplifier so you need a product that is tough enough to withstand these stresses and strains. Because repairing a blown woofer with speaker repair kits can turn out to be very expensive, you need to make sure you plan the intended use of your subwoofer before any purchase.