New Focal XS 2.1 for 100$ is It worth it ?

[bgentry]

There are several good reasons for subs to go on the floor.  Rattling/vibration/etc/ have been discussed.

 

The bigger two reasons are:

 

1.  Placing a sub up high induces a floor bounce reflection.  The sound from the subwoofer takes (at least) two paths:  One directly to your ear and another down to the floor,  and then reflected back to your ear.  The path length of the floor bounce equates to a cancelation in the upper bass region, which you don't want.  All reflections are bad.  This is one we can eliminate by placing it low.

 

2.  Many subwoofers have response that goes much higher than you would expect.  This is why you can hear the lower part of voices and things when you play a subwoofer all by itself.  If the sub is at (or near) ear level, you tend to hear these higher frequencies.  Placing the sub low masks these high frequencies more.  

 

Brian.

[bgentry]

5 hours ago, rando said:

 

Near field, as in 3' from your nose, which these speakers are makes this concern invalid. 

 

Your listening distance will necessarily change the full path length of reflections.  Nearfield is tough for subs because you can end up with the sub closer to the center of the room than the boundaries.  Which means that you necessarily will experience destructive interference from reflections off of the boundary walls.  I guess if you want to do this, putting your desk against a wall and the sub very close to that wall should yield the best results, generally speaking.

 

My nearfield setup has the sub facing a rear wall, with me sitting a few feet off of that wall, and my desk almost in the middle of the room.  In my case, placing the sub under *or* on the desk would probably be pretty awful.  As it is now, the bass response is quite good. 

 

I wasn't trying to argue about this specific setup (the Focal 2.1 system).  I was speaking about sub placement in general and the idea that high placed subs are usually a bad idea.

 

The details are super important.  Placement is probably 80% of sub "tuning".

 

Brian.