How high are your monitors?

  • Thread starter Thread starter timboZ
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studiomaster said:
How can you monitor like that? :confused:

I usually rough in a mix on headphones ($20 Sonys) and then finish it leaning against the kitchen sink. My mixes reflect these improper techniques.
 
ethan,

the manual for my monitors says the correct level is to have the ears level with the top of the woofer. ??
 
FALKEN said:
ethan,

the manual for my monitors says the correct level is to have the ears level with the top of the woofer. ??

What monitors would that be?
 
Its almost embarassing to say but M-Audio BX8's.
 
Top of the woofer / even with the tweeters / halfway between? Man, on most nearfields your talking about posture tolerences that I sure don't meet! 3 feet from the monitors? IMHO, that's so close that you need a neck brace to stay in the sweet spot.

BTW, Excellent video Ethan, slightly less entertaining than the Cello one, but very informative.

THX.
 
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FALKEN said:
the manual for my monitors says the correct level is to have the ears level with the top of the woofer. ??
If I'm not mistaken, the "top of the woofer" on the BX-8s is a point almost exactly halfway between the center of the woofer and the center fo the tweeter. They are therefore probably recommending that location as the "center point" of the monitor, theoretically favoring neither driver.

In general, it's a decent general rule to be more concerned about lining up the high frequency driver with the ears than with the woofer for the simple reason that the higher the frequency, the more directional the sound propigates and the less it tends to disperse off axis. For most speaker/cabinet designs, moving a few inches off-axis from the woofer won't make as much of a difference (room nodes aside) as moving a few inches off-axis from the tweeter can.

With most modern nearfields at the corners of a 3'-4' triangle, I think 3-4" up or down isn't going to make a huge difference in most instances. With your BX8s, lining up on the centerpoint of the cabinet is probably not appreciably different than moving them down 3" to get the tweeter perfectly even with your ears (again room mode and environmental reflection issues aside.)

If one is really worried about it, they can always flip their speakers sideways and have the centers of both the woofer *and* tweeter lined up with their ears.

G.
 
Robert D said:
Top of the woofer / even with the tweeters / halfway between? Man, on most nearfields your talking about posture tolerences that I sure don't meet! 3 feet from the monitors? IMHO, that's so close that you need a neck brace to stay in the sweet spot.

BTW, Excellent video Ethan, slightly less entertaining than the Cello one, but very informative.

THX.
So, where are yours? :confused:
 
Dogman said:
So, where are yours? :confused:

Well, my point was that in such a small triangle, the angular differences between sitting straight and tall or slumping is exagerated, as is the LR image shift with just a little hrozontal movement. I don't know if a 1 meter equallateral triangle is common practice or not, It just seems it would focus the sweet spot to such a fine point that it would drive me nuts. In my case, to answer your question, they are six feet away from me, a couple of feet out from the wall, not in corners, up on stands, and pointed pretty much mid on to my ears, but I just never considered that to be so crucial. But from 3 feet it probably is.
 
Robert D said:
Well, my point was that in such a small triangle, the angular differences between sitting straight and tall or slumping is exagerated, as is the LR image shift with just a little hrozontal movement. I don't know if a 1 meter equallateral triangle is common practice or not, It just seems it would focus the sweet spot to such a fine point that it would drive me nuts. In my case, to answer your question, they are six feet away, and pointed pretty much mid on to my ears, but I just never considered that to be so crucial. But from 3 feet it probably is.
Well, I see your point. I do tend to lean on the desk a bit when listening, as that is just what I have done. Pointing them away a bit, and sitting back, I can get roughly the same sound....but had never really thought about it. (they are app. 6 feet apart, so I should probably be 6 feet away, not 3....)

You have given me something to look into. further away may give me a bit more leeway before the sound really starts to deteriorate. Thanks for answering this. :D
 
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