Guideline(s) for near field monitor distance?

[Peter Roos]

Hi all,

I am playing a bit with the positioning of my nearfield monitors, as I believe my room is a bit to boomy at the moment. I have Event PS8 active monitors on stands at ear height.

My room is a former studio mixing/mastering room, with assymetric walls, bass traps and a rather high attic-like ceiling (max 3,8 meters). The room is 5,5 x 5,5 meters.

I guess I should have to put some more furniture in my room to dampen the lower mids, which are probably giving problems now. There are currently no couches, easy chairs, book shelves, etc., which could help to tame reflections...

At first I liked to have my monitors at some 2 meters away from me (giving a big sound), but I start to get the impression that I have better details and less "room" when I put them closer, say at 1,5 meters.

Is there actually a guideline for optimal distance? Should they normally be even closer, with lower monitoring volume?

How close are you at VSL to your monitors?

Thanks for any reflections (pun) [;)]

Peter

[PaulR]

@Peter Roos said:

Hi all,

Is there actually a guideline for optimal distance? Should they normally be even closer, with lower monitoring volume?
How close are you at VSL to your monitors?
Thanks for any reflections (pun) [;)]
Peter

Hi Peter,

I have Genelecs and there is a supposed formula for optimal sitting/listening distance based on a triangle. What I do, is if the speakers are say, 4 feet apart, then you make a notional triangle with equal length sides, with the net result that you sit/listen where the notional point is. Does that make sense? As an aside, I don't agree with putting sub-woofers under one's desk or any other studio furniture.

PR

[Peter Roos]

Hi PR [;)]

Yes, I also try to maintain an equilateral triangle.

Another bad thing with my setup is my big 20" CRT monitor in front of the "sweet spot".

Although from my chair I can entirely see the monitors, I guess this big CRT probably blocks or deflects some mid frequencies... [:(]

Lifting and tilting the speakers might correct that, but then I'd need other stands.

[PaulR]

@Peter Roos said:

Hi PR [;)]
Yes, I also try to maintain an equilateral triangle.
Another bad thing with my setup is my big 20" CRT monitor in front of the "sweet spot".
Although from my chair I can entirely see the monitors, I guess this big CRT probably blocks or deflects some mid frequencies... [:(]

Thats interesting Peter. I've just bought a 17" and 20" Mac screens and hadn't though of that as a potential problem. Thanks my friend. I'll take that onboard. [H]

Paul

[PolarBear]

Peter,

it might be of some help for you if you try to determine the exact frequencies (or ranges of) that you experience to be not accurate. You might try a slow sine sweep for this, once you hear resonating frequencies note them.

"Conventional" room damping is unlikely to take any effect below 100Hz. Your room is quite big, but the quadratic measeruments will give you quite big unlinearities in the response of your room resulting in double as high room resonance frequency peaks compared to a rectangular room. The first resonance will be around 31Hz with a big peak. All overtones (62Hz, 124Hz, ...) of that frequency will also result in (the higher the less) audible peaks. The room height will result in a resonance around 46Hz. Overtones will also have effect.

For calculating this take the speed of sound (around 344m/s) and divide by the doubled measurements in length, width or height of the room in meters(only works for rectangular rooms).

Perhaps you can find out a bit more, but I don't think it's all done with replacing the monitors, though that may be a part of it.

Hope this helps,
PolarBear

edited room height, unlinearities in room response

[Nick Batzdorf]

Peter's talking about the lower mids and complaining about boominess, so I think that's probably the mudrange around 300Hz.

First, Peter, are you sure it's not the speakers themselves? You don't want to call in the architects if that's the problem! Assuming you don't have the speakers in corners, you could try stuffing the ports with foam. Sometimes that's all it takes.

But you probably do need to move the speakers around. This is one solution:

http://www.abluesky.com/p_s_gb/p3s6.html

(Sorry to keep pumping Blue Sky's stuff - I just happen to know about these stands.)

A reasonably-priced product that can help with mudrange problems is this:

http://www.auralex.com/bass_traps_lenrd/bass_traps_lenrd.asp

As far as placement and distance, I like the sound of NFMs when they're farther away, but I find it much easier to hear what's going on when they're in the traditional NFM position: about 3-4' in an equilateral triangle.

Especially if you have no absorption behind the speakers, big computer monitors in the center tend to make the image sound like it's coming from in front of the computer monitor. When you take it away, the soundstage gets much deeper.

However, I have two flatpanel monitors in front of me, and I don't have that problem - most likely because of the absorption and the fact that they're mounted on LCD arms with gaps between the two and between them and my desktop.

[PolarBear]

I agree with the above, but can say from my own experience that a boomy bass will have negative effect on per se good mids.

[PolarBear]

On a sidenote I'd like to throw even in nearfield if the monitors placed too near to one's ear, the ear is able to distinguish two sources of sound (tweeter and bass) - that could disturb a clean perception of stage and panning.

[Nick Batzdorf]

I agree with both those posts too (the first one because any time one freq range is off, if affects neighboring ranges by contrast). So there! [:P]

[Peter Roos]

Thanks guys,
Interesting comments!