Marcus loved his home theater. Twin 15-inch subwoofers in a room measuring exactly 4.3 × 3.4 × 2.4 meters. He placed both subs in the front left corner because the internet said corners give you maximum output. The internet was not wrong. It just left out some important context.

The front corner excites every axial, tangential, and oblique room mode simultaneously. Marcus's room had a particularly vicious axial mode at 40 Hz (length), 50 Hz (width), and 72 Hz (height). With both subs driving every mode at maximum, certain frequencies were 20 dB louder in the corners than at the listening position. His neighbor three apartments away reported her dishes rattling during action movies.

At the listening position, Marcus perceived massive bass during explosions but thin, uneven bass during music. A measurement would have shown a frequency response resembling a mountain range: 25 dB peaks at modal frequencies with deep nulls in between. He compensated by turning the subs up further, which made the peaks even more extreme.

Room modes are standing waves between parallel surfaces. Corner placement excites all of them. The only solution is measurement-informed placement combined with equalization of the peaks — you cannot EQ a null, but you can reduce a mode.

The Moral: Corner placement maximizes output AND maximizes problems. Use SonaVyx Transfer Function to measure response at your listening position and find the sub placement that trades raw SPL for evenness.