John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Dear all,

I’m in the early stages of planning a small music workshop/studio, and I’m currently stuck on the issue of monitor placement. My computer workstation has two 22” widescreen displays side by side, and no matter what I do it seems I can’t place my monitor speakers in that equilateral triangle position that everybody is talking about, without them being partly or fully obscured by the computer displays. So I was wondering how important it is to place the monitor speakers that way? Is it all that important? I'm not aiming for a perfect studio here, I'm just trying to achieve something that is "good enough", so to say. Would it be awfully bad to place them, say, in a 45 degree angle instead of 30 degrees? Or rather, what if I go ahead and place them in a 45 degree angle, how will it influence the effectiveness of the speakers, and what problems will it create? And also, is it possible to compensate for these problems somehow (without having to use only one display or place them in a non-ergonomic way, none of which are good options)?

English is not my primary language, so I’m sure this or similar questions have been answered before, but I can’t seem to find a comprehensive answer. So far, I’ve only seen answers saying you should put them in an imagined equilateral triangle, but not exactly why.

Thanks in advance,
Linus Leonard

I think I've placed this topic in the wrong subforum. Sorry 'bout that. Such a classic noob mistake.

Hi Linus. Welcome!

How about doing a rough sketch of your room and the layout right now: Even better would be an accurate SketchUp model.

But anyway, to answer some of your questions: Yes, you can place them at a 45 degree angle from the centerline, which gives you an angle of 90 degrees subtended at the mix position, and allows you to spread the speakers further apart. The issue will be that you get a wider than normal stereo image, with a smaller sweet spot. It should not be a problem, according the experts here.

There are a couple of other things you might want to research:

Speaker height: How high are yours? Standard height is 1.2m above the floor, which should be roughly the height of your ears when seated. But you can also go higher, and then angle the speakers down so they are still aimed at your ears. That might allow you to position the speakers above the monitors and stay with your original 60 degree angle. But if you do that, then try to keep the tilt angle as low as possible, preferably under ten degrees, and 20 degrees as the absolute maximum.

Watch out for reflections. As you re-arrange your speakers in your room, you might well find that you are now getting reflections off something that will distort your perception. Use the "mirror trick" to check all of your first reflection points.

Keep the speakers the correct distance from the front wall. If you have them in the wrong range, you can end up with frequency cancellation, comb filtering, and other fun artifacts that can play havoc with your mix.

Decouple the speakers from the stands, or use heavy. massive stands, such as concrete, sand-filled metal, etc.

There are other things too, but if you get these right, you'll be on your way to success.

And don't forget room symmetry and room treatment! You can have the best speakers in the world, perfectly positioned in a precise triangle with no reflections, and mounted on fantastic stand at the perfect height, but if your room is asymmetrical or has lousy acoustics, then you still wont be able to mix properly, no matter what.



- Stuart -