Monitor Placement??

J

Jason James

New member
Hey Guys,

I need a little help on monitor placement. The Scenario: Right now my monitors are back about 2 inches from the wall, the left one is about a foot from the nearest corner. The right one is about 3 feet from the corner due to being next to a door. My desk is 47" wide with my monitors on stands right next to it making them 58" apart. By the time I measure 58" back to my seating area I'm sitting in the middle of my control room. I usually like to sit closer to my desk, I figure I can move back for more critical listening then roll back up to my desk to make more adjustments. My problem is I'm not really hearing a phantom center. Is this a concern? One other thing is my desk has little perforated metal sides that partially obscure the wolfers of my monitors. Could this be a problem? I'm thinking of getting the Auralex pads that go underneath the monitors, this would give them more height and perhaps solve this problem along with helping to decouple them from the room. (anyone have any comments on these things). I RTA'd the room tonight and with the monitors set to -2 for room compensation they seem to be pretty flat. ANYWAY, just thought I'd see if anyone had any ideas or suggestions as far as placement or guidance in areas I'm not thinking correctly. Thanks.

J-3

O.k, hows this for a technical drawing? M= Monitors, D= Door
The i's = the room dimensions (12'x10'). Any thoughts on how better to set up?
----------------------------D D-
i M (d-e-s-k-) M i
i i i i
i ----------- i
i i
i Me i
i i
i i
i i
D i
i
i
D (S-O-F-A) i
----------------------------------------
 
>I RTA'd the room tonight and with the monitors set
>to -2 for room compensation they seem to be pretty flat.

You actually followed my advice??? ;)

If you have them 58" apart, then your listening position should be so that you have 58" to each speaker. The left speaker should be pointing into your left ear and the right into your right ear. They should be at the same hight as your ears. You can try to lie them down too, this is said to improve the stereo image. I have my ALesis lying down, the Behringer manual says you can use the truths in this way too. (I still have it as pdf as I nearly bought them). If you have a very reflective area somewhere (like a window), it's a good idea to put a drape there. If you can move everything out from the wall a bit, then you can maybe turn the room compensation off. That is what happens when you put them to close to walls and corners, you get too much bass in first hand... But that will of course occupy more space... But just getting a bit more that just two inches from the back helps, maybe a foot. Another thing you can do is to just drag one side of your desk forward a bit, so that the monitors not are parallell with the room.

Note: I'm not an expert, I have only done this ONCE!

Good luck!
/Anders
 
It's also important to check that you don't get more bass from one of the speakers. It's likely that you have to compensate the speaker closest to the wall more than the other. When placed correctly, you can try to pan different mono sounds. basses, vocals etc... You will hear them as if on a straight line in front of you between the speakers. Close your eyes and try to center different mono sounds. This will both tell you if your gain knobs are right and if you get too much bass from one speaker.

/Anders
 
My problem is I'm not really hearing a phantom center.
Click to expand...
You won't, you are too close to, and right in the center of the speakers. You should be able to close your eyes with your head up or down and swear the musicians were right in front of you playing live. When you can hear this, you are at the correct distance. I would still measure to be sure.

Mine are at 70" apart cabinet center to center and I sit 70" away. I have a spot marked on the wall to be sure I'm lined up correctly and a spot on the floor that I'm sitting over.

In order to image properly to your ears, follow the above advise. in addition if you are too close in the triangle you're ears will not hear the bass response correctly because the wave has not fully developed yet...depending upon the frequency. This may cause you to overcompensate the bass even though at the correct distance it sounds perfectly fine.
 
article on monitor placement

there's a nice article on this by paul white. i don't know if this is of any interest to anyone in this thread, but if you'd like to you can check it out on the S.O.S. website, that would be exactly here.
 
This is what Behringer support answered when I asked them about the ideal distance in an email this summer:

Dear Anders,

thank you for showing interest in our products.

Please find attached a copy of the instruction manual for the B2031.

Chapter 2.3 (pp 10 - 12) describes the best way to position the 'speakers,
and also how to compensate for any acoustic effects made by the room.

The ideal distance for listening would be approx. between 0,75m & 2,5 m from
each 'speaker - the most important aspect of 'speaker placement is to direct
the "tweeters" towards your ears - to reduce the effect of reflected sound
from the walls. The 'speakers should also be mounted at "seated head height"
- approx. 1.2 - 1.5 m above the ground. They should not be angled up to the
ceiling or down to the floor. Also, try to avoid having the backs of the
'speakers right up against the walls - a space of 1m or more is desirable.


We hope that we have been able to help you with this information.
 
"It's also important to check that you don't get more bass from one of the speakers. It's likely that you have to compensate the speaker closest to the wall more than the other. " -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The above statement is absolutely WRONG!!!!

There is no way you will EVER compensate ACOUSTIC imbalance with ELECTRONIC adjustments. There is NO SUBSTITUTE for a perfectly symmetrical, balanced sound field. Whatever you do to the left side must be done to the right, physically - do NOT place one speaker closer to a wall than the other, do NOT try to correct a timing/phasing problem with EQ, it can't be done.

Oh, and the reason speakers sound more "stereo-ey" when laid on their sides, is that you've just introduced even more phase shifting between frequencies by making it even MORE mandatory that your head doesn't move more than 1/8" from side to side.

What I mean by that: The wavelength of 10kHz sound (just as an example) is 1.356" (1130/10k, x 12) which means that .678" head movement will put you 360 degrees different in phase (+180 for one ear, -180 for the other) so even a movement from side to side of .17" (about 3/16") will cause a phase shift (@ 10k) of 45 degrees. Very noticeable unless you're either deaf or not paying attention to highs...

Now, add to that the fact that, with the drivers in a horizontal line, NOW you ALSO have each speaker's time alignment shifting as you move from side to side, since you're changing the distance from each driver in the speaker relative to your ear.

This is why Tannoy, in their manual for some of their speakers, recommend AGAINST laying the speakers on their sides.

You can obviously do whatever you want, but if what you want is accuracy you need a perfectly symmetrical environment in EVERY way, based on a plane that bisects the line between speakers AND also bisects the center of your head. And don't try to correct TIME problems with EQ - you'll only shift the problem to a different frequency... Steve
 
Thanks....

Hey Thanks guys. Good info here. I'll mess around with things more. Wish I had a longer control room now. If I move my monitors say 12" from the wall and keep them at their 58" apart distance, then move myself 58" back I'd be sitting in the middle of my room and there would be no space left for anything else other than a little bit of gear. Any suggestions on how to do this better in a 10'x12' room? Thanks

J-3
 
monitor position

Steve,
What is your opinion on situating in the corner to get splayed wall
configration? I read ( I think on PSW) about it, but what happens to the open space (behind mixing position) that you turn 45 degrees into? If that makes sense.

But I agree with you on moving the monitors out from the wall. I just did that the other day. From 18" to 2.5' out from the front wall. It really cleaned up the bottom muddiness. I think if I deaden
under and around the monitors would help even more, but how would anyone do that? Build bass traps in those areas? Soory for the newbiness.

TIA

T
 
monitor position

Steve,
What is your opinion on situating in the corner to get splayed wall
configration? I read ( I think on PSW) about it, but what happens to the open space (behind mixing position) that you turn 45 degrees into? If that makes sense.

But I agree with you on moving the monitors out from the wall. I just did that the other day. From 18" to 2.5' out from the front wall. It really cleaned up the bottom muddiness. I think if I deaden
under and around the monitors would help even more, but how would anyone do that? Build bass traps in those areas? Sorry for the newbiness.

TIA

T
 
Regarding placing monitors on their side...

There's a great technical discussion of why NOT to do this on the genelec website. Check it out at

http://www.genelec.com/faq/faq21.php

as far as placement, with respect to walls, etc, I firmly believe that nobody should be allowed to put speakers anywhere without reading the Crutchfield guide to Speaker Placement and Room acoustics. You get it free if you order anything from them, otherwise it's $13 (and well worth it), here:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-h5CmkyaEgvB/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?i=700AVREF

it's a great primer for how speakers interact with a room, and necessary for a home rec-er who would like to monitor. The short, short version, with respect to our problem, is that moving speakers closer to boundaries "boosts" the bass, and that can be good or bad. For Near-field Reference Monitors to operate in the fashion for which they were designed, they should be pretty far from any boundaries. And there DEFINITELY shouldn't be anything between your ears and the speaker cones. Diffraction will cause problems for critical listening.

-mg
 
knightfly (and others), On my Alesis M1 active Mk2, there are two bass ports that you can plug if you get too much bass, so in that case there are no electronical adjustments. The manual doesn't specifically say that you should never just plug the ports of one of the speakers, but it doesn't say that you always should do the same adjustment to both speakers either. Do you think it's better to have more bass from one side than to plug the ports of that side if you are forced to have that speaker in a corner? Also, the drivers are not on a symetrical line on my monitors. (The left monitor is a mirror of the right one). Maybe this makes them more insesitive to these phase problems you talk about...? I notice a bigger change in the sound from moving my head up and down than from moving it from side to side... The ceiling is not very high in the room (79"). Having them standing up would get the bass ports and the tweeters closer to the ceiling. What would you reccomend?

/Anders
 
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I just re-read the manual for my Alesis, and I think I did the right thing to place them horizontally, with tweeters to the center. The phase shifts ("comb filtering" effect while moving your head) is said to appear when placing the tweeters to the outside. Placing them vertically will give a wider stereo field and sweetspot, but then the sound will also be more influenced by the room and the distance to the walls has to be longer. So I placed them horizotally with tweeters to the center to minimize the effects from the room. But this is as said instructions for my Alesis and they were designed to work in that way.
 
With all the shit you've put on your monitoring system, and the elaborate way you butcher your signal chain (based on everything you've described) - the LAST thing you need to worry about is monitor placement.......... once you get some actual recording skills, THEN you can worry about tweaks......

As it is - it's like worrying about buying Mogami cable for a Radio Shack mic plugged into a Fostex X-15......

May I suggest then - Boray - that for you, the ideal listening positioning would be with your head up your arse.... monitors EQ'd of course........

:rolleyes:
 
Sorry for the (about to be) brief answers, but have some pressing things on the agenda for today -

On corner mixing position: Works well if you build a corner trap (behind desk, in FRONT of you while sitting in mix position) - The trap should be faced with open weave cloth over 2" or 3" rigid fiberglas board (703, or Knauf equivalent, usually only available by contacting all the COMMERCIAL insulation companies in your area and being persistent. See john's site for drawings on traps. In a small room, there is not enough depth to get away with diffusion at the rear (behind you) so it's better to absorb. Again, see John's site for examples.

If you call the two walls that make up the corner the mix desk sits in, the FRONT walls, and the two behind you the REAR walls, here' what happens - the front walls keep early reflections from coming directly to your ears, but reflect them past you to the two rear walls, which then reflect them more or less toward each other (think of a corner bank shot on a pool table) so these reflections now are butting heads behind you (known as firing into compression) if you absorb the rear walls, it minimises this and keeps these reflections from muddying up the stereo image.

The front corner trap acts as both a bass trap and a broadband absorber, taming any reflections between the rear of the desk and wall.

I would use only fairly firm dampening material UNDER the monitors, because if the monitor is on a soft foam surface, every time a low freq pulse is reproduced it will cause the whole speaker to rock back and forth, which in turn will cause more phasing problems between woof and tweet.

I know of no way to avoid the driver-to-driver phasing that results from laying monitors on their side. Geometry is geometry, and when you don't maintain the same constant distance from each driver of a single speaker to your ear, you WILL get phase anomalies (both from speaker to speaker, AND from driver to driver) as you move your head from side to side. Genelec and tannoy, and probably others if they know, recommend the same orientation and it's NOT horizontal.

Don't sit (or place any instrument or mic) dead center in ANY room - every mode of the room will either ADD or CANCEL there, and you'll fight it without a chance of winning.

The only thing that should be centered, is left-to-right the speakers should be equidistant (nearest 1/8" or better) from rear and side walls, and your head should be centered halfway between the speakers. There is a term, Median Plane, that refers to a plane located down the center of the room (whether oriented diagonally or square with the walls, doesn't matter) - EVERYTHING that exists on the left of this plane should have a twin on the right side also. Total plane symmetry left to right.

You DON'T want your head or speakers or mics or instruments centered in any OTHER plane - don't put speakers exactly halfway between floor and ceiling, for example - more cancellation/addition of room mode frequencies...

I can't believe Crutchfield CHARGES for their report, with all the FREE info on the web - but then again, I've seen their prices...

Alesis, while making some fairly good products for the money, have done you no favors by offsetting their tweeters - I wonder if they did that so their monitors would be equally mediocre no matter which way you place them? This isn't a problem with mid or farfield monitors, because of the larger ratio of speaker distance vs. driver separation - but for nearfields, it's a no-no.

On plugging ports, if you have EVERYTHING symmetrical and the speakers are matched, then either BOTH or NEITHER speaker should have ports plugged. You can't compensate for a Temporal difference with EQ, since a temporal condition changes with juxtaposition and EQ does NOT...

And, to paraphrase Bear's eloquence, LESS is usually MORE - If you can't get a sound you like while just listening to it LIVE in the room, how the hell can you expect it to be any better after you RECORD it? Meaning, get it sounding right, THEN worry about getting it RECORDED right, and your mixes will almost happen by themselves.

Gotta go do husbandly crap, later... Steve
 
Thank you very much Knightfly! I have one more problem (reason) why I put them horizontally. I'm kind of forced to place one of the monitors on top of a big old organ. And it's that high that having the monitors horizontally gets them exactly at ear level, while standing them up would only get the woofer at ear level (and the bassports + tweeters closer to the low ceiling (and corner)). Do you still think having them standing up would be better for me?

Bluebear: I haven't EQd my monitors.... Just plugged two bass ports...

/Anders
 
knightfly, Thanks again! I placed my monitors standing up yesterday, and what a difference! It sounds better, the sweetspot is a lot bigger and the sound changes less when moving your head around. I had to do some furniture climbing as I had to swhitch Left<->Right monitor to get the tweeters to the inside (according to the manual). That's the main reason why I haven't tried this before, and that I didn't think that they could sound any better... But they could! Thanks again!

PS. I still plugged both ports of corner speaker. They are just bass reflection ports so the sound probably comes from the back of the woofer. So I'm actually switching one reflection for another. I know it would be better not to, but... out of lazyness...

/Anders
 
Boray, no offense but you are worse than a false prophet.

how can you tell a man about something that you know nothing about yourself?

no knowledge of phase issues, and telling someone to decrease the volume of one of their speakers.

come on man.
 
crosstudio said:
Boray, no offense but you are worse than a false prophet.

how can you tell a man about something that you know nothing about yourself?

no knowledge of phase issues, and telling someone to decrease the volume of one of their speakers.

come on man.
Click to expand...

I said "Note: I'm not an expert, I have only done this ONCE!". I think that's enough for people to get an idea of how much I know about this. Now ....I have done it twice.

I still think that if you are FORCED to have one speaker in a corner, and if the speakers have some built in "room compensation", then I think that you should use it, according to the manual. Else you will pan your bass too much in the other direction in the mix. (You could even get MORE phase problems if you don't, as you then will set that speaker to a lower volume because it's percieved louder without the bass compensation).

To detect phase problems, here is a tip: Play some trashy music in MONO over the monitors. Now it's much more easy to hear changes while moving your head around. It's also handy to have a small mirror. Place it in different places that you think reflects the sound in your face. If you see the speaker in the mirror from your listening position, then this could be what's causing the phase problem. Note again: I'm neither an expert or a profet. I came up with these two tips myself and they are not scientificly proven or anything.... Or maybe they are... What do I know....

/Anders
 
good reading.. my monitors are only 30" from each other.. i'll be making some adjustments tonight and make them about 58-70" apart.. maybe it'll even help clean up the mix i'm working on right now
 
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