Speaker position and ceiling height

[paw1]

I know that you should by all means avoid putting your speakers halfway between the floor and ceiling because of nulls (I think). My speakers are pretty large, about 40 cm tall. Currently they're positioned so that the area between the tweeter and woofer is halfway between the floor and ceiling. If I move them up (can't move them down because of the design of the stand), the woofer will be halfway between the floor and ceiling, and that would be worse, right?

I'm not trying to fix a problem here. Just wondering if my current positioning is the way to go. Would like to know what you would do in my situation.

By the way, my ceiling is pretty low, only 205 cm over the floor.

-paw

 

[Steenamaroo]

Don't worry about the ceiling.....Point the speakers at your ears.

Set them so they make an equilateral triangle with your head.


If you put some music on, sit there, and move up and down slowly, you'll hear the difference straight away.
They say tweeters at ear height but I think I'm lower than that with my Mackies.

EDIT: Memory failed me, again. Tweeters are ear height over here.
Try it.

 

[miroslav]

I have my speakers so that the point in-between the tweeter and speaker is at my ear height....though I didn't go nuts with that, it just fell into place, mostly 'cuz when I designed/built my console/racks I was also considering the monitors, and it worked out.

I think you don't want to get closer to the ceiling than 2/3 of the height....but that's usually not a problem with a seated mix position.

Here's how mine are set up...I have the speakers toed-out just a pinch so they focus j-u-s-t behind me rather than at me, that way I don't get as much of the speaker hype...and I can just roll the chair back a foot if I want a more direct sound.

 

[mixsit]

My understanding is placement in the room is certainly a factor -relative to the walls and the ceiling/floor for that mater.
So it would seem you would then want to apply that -as well as our speaker-to-listener alignment.

The reason I'm chiming in here.. is my mains are a little lower than I'd like- tweet/mid driver slightly below ear level seated, but- This situation is a little different than 'desk/stand speakers. I'm not (typically) close enough for than to matter, but if I raise them to where I'd prefer they would be about center floor to ceiling.
I'd actually like to experiment with 'center driver slightly above seated ear level as well, but the damn things weigh 85lb

 

[joel77]

You would typically not want your speakers close to the back wall either. As I recall, 2/3 of the way front to back in your room. Realizing this isn't always possible, but another factor to consider in placing speakers.

 

[miroslav]

You can always leave them in the same position height-wise...and just tilt them back a couple of degrees up at you. I've seen a lot of speakers that are up higher vertically in bigger rooms, or like the sofit-mounted mains...but then they are tilted down toward the mix position...so I think tilting them up a little is also valid.

It's important to find that sweet spot for the upper-mids/highs, since that's where all the definition is, that way your mix decisions are accurate in that range....whereas the low-end is not as directional, and you can hear it about the same even when you're off-axis.

 

[GIK Acoustics]

The "acoustic axis" of the speaker, usually the tweeter on a two way, is the point we use when we're measuring high frequencies, but not low frequencies - just as you assumed. In this case, (for SBIR in particular, which is the phenomenon that creates those nulls) you'll want to go off the low frequency driver. If the driver is below the middle, you should be alright. Just as an idea, some people actually place monitors upside down if it works out better for the room (and if the speakers are okay with this - some might not due to amp overheating issues and such).
Current position sounds like its the way to go.

You could always test it by raising the speakers up a few inches and seeing if it does anything worse sound wise, though it might take testing to find the exact position of the nulls.

Edit: A lot of people in the thread think he's talking about reflections so I'd like to clear that up a little bit:

When you position speakers in a room, you not only get distortions from the orientation and polar response of the speaker, etc, but also of the speaker's position in the room. This is called "SBIR" - Speaker Boundary Interference Response. We've got an article about it here: Speaker Boundary Interference Response (SBIR) |