Studio Monitors in Small Rooms

C

Centropolis

New member
I am trying to setup a basic home recording studio. I have all the basic items already. I have headphones for tracking and mixing but really want to get a pair of studio monitors. The problem I have is that my room is 12 feet by 10 feet and I cannot afford to move my desk two/three feet away from a wall.

What I understand so far is, I should either get front-ported monitors or use attenuation on the speakers to cut some low-freq if they are rear-ported. The more affordable ones I am looking at are all rear-ported and I am wondering if the the low filters really is something that I should fiddle with or just spent more to get front-ported ones.

The ones I am thinking about are the Presonuc Eirs 4.5 (rear port) and Eris 5 which are front ported but almost costs twice as much to buy the pair.
 
Get what you can afford and cope with the consequences. By being closer to the wall you can get an artificial bass boost which may translate into bass-thin mixes.

Many home recordists have to work in sub-optimal conditions: small rooms, badly shaped rooms, acoustically unfriendly rooms. Unless you are in a position to engineer a good acoustic environment, don't sweat on it too much and just work with what you've got.
 
Yeah, very few folks have big rooms for this hobby. I have rear ported monitors (HS5s) sitting on the desk barely a foot from the wall and my listening triangle is just 4' on a side in my small, square room. I do have bass traps behind the monitors so hope that helps some, but it's still a learning process.
 
Do what you can afford man. $300 a pair is where I would draw the line as minimum cost for monitors that you can actually learn from though. My first two pairs of monitors were $300 used and I realized soon that the investment on better quality monitors were my second best investment after acoustic room treatment. I just actually gave away one pair to a member here for only shipping cost. What ever happened to [MENTION=174503]spantini[/MENTION] anyway? Haven't heard from him in almost two months...Hopefully busy mixing. :)

Looks like the Eris 5's are only $100 more than a pair of the 4.5's. Well, at least from Sweetwater in US. LINK

Where about are you located?

Again, you can try for used monitors and get great deals, if it is local. Shipping will usually kill the value of a good used deal if not close...
 
I've looked into the rear port and wall thing and from what I've learned it's a non issue. Just don't go so close as to restrict flow from the port.

Not a perfect page but some good info.
Speaker Placement 101: How to Fight Boundary Interference

Port orientation isn't the problem as the bass frequencies radiate omni.
A case could be made that having larger distances to the wall causes unnecessary peaks or dips.
 
The owners manual for my old Tannoy Reveal passives actually recommended stuffing the port when you had to put them close to a wall. When i first got them i didnt know whether they were "too close" so i just tried them both way with known commercial releases for testing. I ended up not needed to plug them and i only had about 20 inches to the back wall, so there is always something that can be done.
 
The only real thing I could envision happening from rear port monitors close to a non-treated back wall is maybe air noise? I am not even sure how that would matter.

From my understanding, the port is only a design feature which lowers the frequency response capability of the speaker by controlled tuning of the pressure from within the enclosure. It doesn't actually put out bass signal per say.

I do however love how my A7x's will blow me a kiss in the face when kick drums hit right. :)
 
mixsit said:
I've looked into the rear port and wall thing and from what I've learned it's a non issue. Just don't go so close as to restrict flow from the port.

Not a perfect page but some good info.
Speaker Placement 101: How to Fight Boundary Interference

Port orientation isn't the problem as the bass frequencies radiate omni.
A case could be made that having larger distances to the wall causes unnecessary peaks or dips.
Click to expand...

I am so glad someone else has come to this conclusion. It has always been an odd "non problem" to me as the port radiation (yes there IS some) is just as omnidirectional as that from the cone at LF. More so in fact since ports are almost always of considerably smaller area than cones.

My Tannoy 5As are inescapably on wall brackets, angled down and the ports are some 100mm from the wall. I notice no great problem at bass frequencies. Yes, I AM deaf but not much below 100Hz!

Dave.
 
Thanks for all the comments so far. I WANT to think that placing monitors close to a wall, whether I have front or rear ported speakers, is less of an practical issue when you're not working in a perfect environment. I want to think that yes it's not ideal but there are so many factors in a small home studio that it'd probably not matter for a beginner.

I wish I can afford to place my monitors more than 4 or 5 inches away from the wall but that';s about the best I can do based on my room.

Untitled.jpg
 
I agree with all of the above. As long as you realize that your mixes will probably suffer (at a minimum) bass wise.... if you only use the monitors......you'll be on your way. Use decent headphones to understand your bass results and use other references (car stereo...home stereo....etc) to test your overall mixes. After a while.......you'll begin to see how to adjust as you go.
 
Centropolis said:
Thanks for all the comments so far. I WANT to think that placing monitors close to a wall, whether I have front or rear ported speakers, is less of an practical issue when you're not working in a perfect environment. I want to think that yes it's not ideal but there are so many factors in a small home studio that it'd probably not matter for a beginner.

I wish I can afford to place my monitors more than 4 or 5 inches away from the wall but that';s about the best I can do based on my room.

View attachment 103991
Click to expand...

4-5" is fine, plenty. Fact is short of massive treatment the bass ranges are not going to be near flat' in our small rooms. (That's not to say don't do what you can as it does improve things in all the other aspects.
As been said, head phones plus pick a few spots in your room to gather different variations on what the bottom is actually doing.
I like to post this as it gives a view of what we're talking about. Fill in a version of a room dimensions (won't do a two rectangles room but..) Then click on the various frequencies to see...
hunecke.de | Room Eigenmodes Calculator
 
I have read same about monitors and walls, where closer to wall can actually help tame bass frequencies. Bass Traps, of course, are always good.
Not knowing your budget, the Focal Alpha 6.5s are really quite good as are the JBL-308MkIIs. I've owned both.
 
homestudioguy said:
I have read same about monitors and walls, where closer to wall can actually help tame bass frequencies. Bass Traps, of course, are always good.
Not knowing your budget, the Focal Alpha 6.5s are really quite good as are the JBL-308MkIIs. I've owned both.
Click to expand...

As someone who is just beginning to record and mix as a hobby, yeah, the HS5/305PMkII/E5 are the price range I am willing to go with for now. Also, 8" monitors will be taking up too much space on my not too big desk. Maybe when I get more serious about this.....I will look into getting better monitors. Right now, it's mixing with my Beyerdynamic DT880 and a cheap pair of monitors.
 
Can't go wrong with Eris monitors, but i would opt for the front ported ones. I currently use the Sceptre 8's and am so pleased. Began with the KRK 6's. Upgraded to Eris 8's and now the Sceptres. I've got that pair of Eris 8's that i'm gonna sell for 100 bucks for the pair. Like new , hardly ever used .
 
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