Move it forward three inches.
Most people position their listening chair where it feels comfortable in the room—against the back wall, centered between the speakers, maybe with a nice view out the window. Then they wonder why the bass sounds wrong, boomy in some frequencies and absent in others. The room is telling them something important, but they're not listening.
Bass behaves strangely in rooms. Low-frequency waves reflect off walls and either reinforce or cancel each other depending on where you sit. This creates a complex pattern of peaks and nulls throughout your space. Sit in the wrong spot and certain bass notes will be overwhelming while others simply disappear. The bass line that should anchor the music becomes an uneven mess.
Finding the right listening position is more important than finding the right speaker position when it comes to bass. I've seen systems where moving the chair forward or backward by just a few inches transformed muddy, boomy bass into tight, articulate low end. Sometimes the right spot is uncomfortably close to the speakers. Sometimes it's farther back than seems natural.
Here's how to find it: play music with a walking bass line—acoustic bass works perfectly. Now slowly walk toward and away from your speakers while listening to how the bass changes. You'll hear obvious differences in bass weight and definition as you move. When you find a spot where the bass sounds even and natural across all notes, that's where your chair belongs.
Your room has already decided where you should sit. You just need to discover it.
