It seems a familiar name around here - Peter Tribeman - has been busy with more than just new product development. This month's issue of Home Theater has an article, written by Peter, describing how to give the best demonstration of your home theater.

Based on the rave reviews I've heard about Outlaw's demo rooms at tradeshows, I was interested to read his tips. In fact, there was a neat suggestion about subwoofer placement I'm dying to try out. He basically says that if you move your sub to your listening position, and move around the edge of the room until the bass response is to your liking, when you switch the sub to that position you'll hear that same bass response in your listening position.

I won't divulge more, as I'm sure Peter would prefer we all picked up the issue.

While I was glad I could profit from the wisdom of the chief Outlaw, I have to say - this being the "tips and tricks" forum, we'd love for Peter to divulge some of his secrets here, you know, us being loyal customers and fans

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll have to go check this article out.

That subwoofer placement strategy is in the manuals for all the LFM subs. It is based on the idea that all reflections are symmetric (which they are!). If your sub is in position A and you are in position B, it will sound the same as if you put the sub in position B and you listen in position A.

Taking advantage of symmetries was the most important thing in high level physics classes.... now someone is putting it to good audio use!

The sub placement trick also appears in Outlaw's SMS-1 guide, now that you mention it (under "Tips and Tricks" in fact). In that case, they suggest putting the sub in the listening position but using the SMS-1's microphone instead of your ear to test different places in the room (the goal being to find the position that yielded the smoothest response curve).

piggy-back off of Gonk ....
the SMS-1 'trick' is very cool to play w/, especial in difficult rooms.

The trick mentioned by Sluggo from Peter has been a standard from M&K sub setup. At least that is where i learned about it back in the day.

Thanks Sluggo for the recognition.

Everyone is right about the subwoofer placement procedure. That has been known for years.

In my opinion,the more "interesting" setup technique is the volume adjustment protocol utilizing Harrison Ford's voice. In so many rooms it has prevented the sub from calling attention to itself.

Peter