Speaker positioning in this room

  • Thread starter Thread starter snup
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snup

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Since this is also my first post on this forum, I wanna say "Hi" to everybody.

Now, to get to the point, I have a crappy room to work with. I am a student, low on money, so moving is not the case. Here's a sketch:

myroom.webp

* I seems I was wrong in the sketch. The room is actually just 16 square meters (which is about 52`)

The room, beside being small, has the worst shape possible for working with audio.:facepalm:

The mixing desk was positioned there because of the available space, not because of the acoustic properties of the spot (which are terrible).

I also want to mention my room is totally untreated. I know treatment is a must, but before I will even think about treatment, I have to figure out if there's any spot in this room where the sound would get better than it is right now.

I know the only way to find out is to start moving my mixing desk around and check the sound, but as I don't live alone, this is harder than said. So before I start moving everything around, I want to ask:

Did someone ever mix in a room with approximately this shape and size and got decent results? If yes, where did you position the speakers? Thank you. :D
 
I also want to mention my room is totally untreated. I know treatment is a must, but before I will even think about treatment, I have to figure out if there's any spot in this room where the sound would get better than it is right now.
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Almost anywhere. You are, by FAR, in the absolute worst possible spot in that room. The only thing that could make it worse would be turning 45 degrees CCW and actually facing that corner.

Which way does that door swing...?
 
Massive Master said:
Almost anywhere. You are, by FAR, in the absolute worst possible spot in that room. The only thing that could make it worse would be turning 45 degrees CCW and actually facing that corner.

Which way does that door swing...?
Click to expand...

Ethan Winer said:
You should put the speakers in front of the wall on the left, facing toward the right side of the drawing.
--Ethan
Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply guys.
John, here is another sketch on how the doors swing.
gunxrcr3.webp
Also, Ethan, thank you for the link. Very useful info. :)

I am also sure the furniture pieces in my room contribute a lot to the sound. If you have any tips on how could I position them to create less bad reflections and absorb more low end, I would be happy to hear them.

The desk, bookshelf and closet are made out of MDF wood. Couch and bed - well, usual materials - foam, MDF and wood.

Thank you for taking your time to read and answer.
 
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Dogbreath said:
Up against a window?
That don't sound right.
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No, that wall is the only one that makes sense. If you want to shoot down the long end of the room AND be symmetrical as far as having equal distance to a corner on each side, it's really the only wall that you can accomplish that with.

I've never heard that having a window behind your speakers is a problem. I'm not saying it's not, I just never came across that. :cool:
 
That (positioning) was going to be the next point (and the reason I was asking about the door). But Ethan is all over that stuff more than I am anyway (and it's nice to see you again, Ethan).

Point is, as long as the door swings away from the room, you should be able to set up there. I was going to suggest an alternate if the door swung inward. But you're in the best spot with Ethan's suggestion anyway.

Notice how close it is to the worst spot...?
 
From what I know the only issue with the window would be reflections off of the glass. If you have blinds on the window that would help, but moving the desk as Ethan said would be a great help.
 
RAMI said:
I've never heard that having a window behind your speakers is a problem. I'm not saying it's not, I just never came across that. :cool:
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Right, this is one of the biggest myths in acoustics. Most "box" type speakers send sound the other way, so the window is not a source of reflections except at bass frequencies where all speakers are omnidirectional. This is such a common myth I wrote this article to debunk it:

Front Wall Absorption

--Ethan
 
Ethan: Great article, I did not know that about reflections. Would the glass be more reflective than say gypsum board (drywall) all factors being equal? Say snup left his mixing position as is would he get more reflections off of the window there, than say if it was just a normal wall?
 
Glass and drywall reflect more or less the same, except at the very highest frequencies. Both surface types are very damaging at reflection points. More here:

Surface Reflectivity

--Ethan
 
Move your bed and couch into your mix position and move your mix position where your bed and couch usta be.
 
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