Home Subwoofers: Get the Lowdown on Deep Sound

Anyone who has spent time in movie theaters, dance clubs or concert venues knows how forceful bass frequencies feel. Home subwoofers lay a solid sonic foundation that extends beyond the threshold of frequencies that the human ear can detect to create deep, powerful sounds you can feel. The audible frequencies that home subwoofers emit combine with the range of higher frequencies that emanate from woofer and tweeter speakers to create a full, dynamic sound spectrum for an incredible listening experience.

Deep bass frequencies have not always been present in music and movies. The bass frequencies on vinyl records (LPs) are generally high pitched and thin sounding, which standard speakers are able to reproduce without the aid of a subwoofer speaker. Reel-to-reel and other tape players are capable of capturing and playing deeper bass frequencies than LPs, but until the advent of CDs, it was impossible to add ultra low frequencies to audio recordings.

The first subwoofers were developed during the 1960s, but they didn’t attract the ears of the populous until the mid-1970s, when movie-going audiences began to hear film soundtracks in Sensurround, the precursor to modern surround-sound systems. In 1974, the movie Earthquake was released in Sensurround. This movie’s dynamic soundtrack demonstrated the full extent of subwoofers’ amazing ability to bring the on-screen action of a powerful earthquake to life with thundering, theater-shaking low-frequency effects (LFEs). Earthquake introduced audiences to the power of subwoofers, and they’ve been an integral component of theater sound systems ever since.

During the affluent ‘90s, people began to purchase high-quality theater sound systems in an attempt to re-create the experience of seeing a film in a movie theater within the comfort of their own home. The development of new media formats like DVD and Blu-ray discs, along with vastly improved digital media players, high-definition (HD) flat-screen TVs and highly sophisticated home subwoofers and speakers, have made high-quality home theater systems more desirable than ever before.

Since the early 2000s, home subwoofers have become commonplace components in stereo systems and even computer speaker arrays. Subwoofers have also become an important component in custom car audio systems, and the people who drive cars with a subwoofer in the trunk are anything but inconspicuous. In addition to having become a mainstay in movie theaters, powered subwoofers are ubiquitous in nightclubs and concert venues. It's hard to imagine what listening to music or hearing movie soundtracks at any of these places would sound like without them.

If you enjoy watching movies, listening to music or streaming videos online, you definitely need to include home subwoofers in your audio system. Almost without exception, modern music recordings incorporate deep, resonant, low-frequency bass tones that only home subwoofers can play back with accuracy and fidelity.

You’d be hard-pressed to find movies produced after 1974 – especially action and horror films – that do not contain LFEs that only a subwoofer can handle. Even the most character-based dramas have dynamic musical soundtracks that include low-frequency instrumentation. They too require a subwoofer to enhance the impact of the music and heighten the drama. The point is, regardless of your personal tastes, adding home subwoofers to your stereo system will improve your entertainment experience. Period.

In addition to home subwoofers, you might also be interested in the other components of home stereo systems. Check out our reviews and comparisons of audio-video (AV) receivers, home theater speakers and the subwoofer cables you will need to connect your new subwoofer speaker to your stereo receiver and integrate it into your sound system.

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