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Do Home Theaters need a Subwoofer?

One of the secrets to having a good movie experience with your own home theater system equipment is the quality of the music and the sound of the movie.

Having a good music quality can elevate the movie experience since it can give you heart pounding moments and can make you feel like you are actually in the scene as well.

If you want that superb quality of sound with bass resonating across the room, what you need to add to your theater equipment is a subwoofer. A subwoofer can intensify bass sounds like drumbeats and other subtle sound effects in the movie.

Here are a few things that you should know about subwoofers:

  • General purpose speakers actually do not do a bad job in producing quality sounds for your home cinema since not all scenes and movies have low hertz and base sounds that need to be amplified. But the addition of a subwoofer can make low frequency sounds to be audible to add depth and background to the audio or high frequency music of the movie.
  • If you want to have a surround sound system for your home cinema, having a subwoofer is really necessary since it can intensify bass sounds especially those that are lower than 20 hertz. The human ear can hear sounds that are between 20 to 20,000 hertz. Many of the sound systems for home cinemas today have a separate channel and receiver with a subwoofer that is solely dedicated to play those low frequency and bass sounds.
  • There are basically two types of subwoofers that you can choose from. These are the active subwoofer and the passive subwoofer. If you plan to have a hassle free installation because you are setting up your home cinema by yourself, an active subwoofer will be perfect since it contains a built-in amplifier. Passive subwoofers need to have an external amplifier to produce good quality sounds. Active subwoofers produce excellent quality music and they are easier to install too.
  • The position inside the home cinema where you place your subwoofer is a very important element in its installation. This needs a little trial and error because it would require you to move the subwoofer around the room and look for the spot where the sounds are reflected and resonated clearly. You can also alter the crossover frequency of your subwoofer and match it to the lowest frequency of your speakers to get crisper sounds.