Here is the short answer. For the best sound quality, the subwoofer should be placed with the speaker facing out to the room, and the port should be away from a wall. Bass waves travel in all directions, but its important to have the speaker facing your main listening area.

How far should a subwoofer be from the wall?

In fact, high-quality subs tend to sound their best when pulled at least 8 to 12 inches from any wall. Subwoofers also work better in the front half of your listening space, placed closer to your front-channel loudspeakers to lessen timing delays and phase cancellation.

Does it matter where you position a subwoofer?

In most cases, its actually better to not hide the subwoofer. Many vendors recommend that you place your subwoofer in a corner. This placement reinforces the bass significantly. However, in some rooms, you can get too much reinforcement of your bass in the corner, and you end up with boomy bass.

Is it bad to have subs facing up?

Facing the subwoofer upward while in the trunk, gives you big bass without consuming a lot of space. This direction offers crisp sound with a slight advantage to high frequencies and treble, and wont rattle loose parts in your vehicle as much.

Where should an in wall subwoofer be placed?

For a single subwoofer, we recommend you put it on the front wall and if possible put the subwoofer towards one of the front corners. Having the subwoofer in a corner will couple the subwoofer better to the room, giving you more bass impact.

Are down firing subwoofers good?

An advantage of a down-firing subwoofer is the driver wont move out of place. Usually, drivers are forward-firing or side-firing. If your subwoofer is down-firing then you dont have to worry about a subwoofer falling out of place.