You can explore the physics by playing a track with thumping bass, then walking the room, close to the walls, while carrying a pile of Post-Its and a magic marker. As you encounter a spot with enhanced bass, place a Post-It. Certain locations, such as #1, will have doubly enhanced bass. Mark these Post-It’s with !!. The Post-It’s are at “peaks”. Approximately midway between two peaks, is a “null” where the bass will be minimized. The effect is symmetric. If you place a subwoofer at at peak, it will be more efficient. As you become familiar with the process you’ll be able to find smaller peaks and nulls in three dimensions throughout the space. I suspect that your current subwoofer location and listening position are at nulls.
You can also turn the walk inside out by placing the subwoofer at a proposed listening position. After the walk, you can move the subwoofer to an appropriate spot, since you now know the locations of peaks and nulls, relative to your listening position.
In my college apartment I found a monster peak and placed a chair on it. This was the favorite spot for males because the bass seemed to explode from within their body. If I moved the chair a few inches the effect was gone.
Tone controls can be constructive. They can amend the system response to accommodate room conditions and user preferences. I know a fellow who always sets tone controls at max and places SUB at a location similar to your #1. This sounds “best” to him. Fortunately for me, I don’t need spend any time in that room because it sounds very “bad” to me. I don’t need to comment to him how offensive the room sounds to me. In fact, I helped him setup the room, knowing his preferences, and I’m a hero.
Trueplay can be helpful, but it will not result in “best” for everyone and some room situations are beyond Trueplay’s ability to correct. Trueplay would not be appreciated by the fellow above.
