how far apart to place nearfield monitors?

ClownMonkey · Post by **ClownMonkey** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 10:56 am

Hi,
I was wondering what is a good rule of thumb for calculating the distance apart my nearfield monitors are mounted?

jrsgodfrey · Post by **jrsgodfrey** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:15 am

This Tannoy piece is pretty comprehensive on the subject.

http://www.sweetwater.com/NearField/home.html

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:24 am

I have always read 3-4', slightly toed-in, with your ears equidistant and at tweeter level.

However, some manufacturers say different regarding various monitors.

See here, and here and here.

Or, do what I did, and google '"monitor placement" and studio'.

EDIT: while I was looking for the Tannoy pub, and googling away, ya beat me to it!

ClownMonkey · Post by **ClownMonkey** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:36 am

Thanks guys. Now I've got a little reading to do while waiting for those mounting brackets from eBay.
Rockin'!

Professor · Post by **Professor** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:55 am

Well there ain't much more to say with all those links, but perhaps I could distill that down to a shorter 'rule of thumb' explanation.

Place the speakers in an equilateral triangle with your listening position. You remember those triangles, all three sides the same length, so the distance from you to R = distance from you to L = distance from R to L. Place the speakers so the tweeters are at ear height (or angle them downward/upward to make that happen). And I like to toe them in so that an imaginary line straight out from the tweeters would cross just behind my head.

After that, you should put on a commercial CD you know well with a good center image voice and tweak the toe in so the voice hangs in the center of the sound field. You may find that the speakers don't land at quite the same angle, but that is normal.

You should still read all that other info, but I think that condensed version should help get you started.

-Jeremy

I'm Painting Again · Post by **I'm Painting Again** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 9:51 am

typically you want them as wide as the distance between their center point on their "x" plane or the line both speakers make, to your head..or an equal triangle..I use a piece of light vinyl cut into an =triangle to point and position mine quickly..

jmoose · Post by **jmoose** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:43 pm

It's also worth noting that the monitors, especially if it's your only set should be at least a foot away from the rear wall to avoid low-end buildup & coupling.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:07 pm

You know, after years of working in different rooms on different monitors, one thing that I've learned about the way I mix is that there is no formula. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but it's so specific to the room acoustics, monitor distance from the front wall, engineer distance from the monitors, console depth, monitor height on stands or the meter bridge (an API Legacy Plus puts the monitors much higher than almost any 8-buss in an Argosy), and just plain what I want to hear.

After years of working with wherever the monitors were in a given room, I started realizing that while I thought I was being a real badass in terms of stereo width and spatial placement (via phase relationship manipulation, Haas effect, or whatever), my mixes never had the same depth and spatial response when I took them out of the control room. I started thinking about how often I listen to music from the exact center of an equalateral triangle except in a control room environment and realized the answer was "pretty much never." So I started experimenting with moving my monitors closer together and that meant I had to work harder to make those kind of spatial things happen for more normal speaker placement. (Remember that the farther you get from the exact center of the monitoring triangle, the more "mono" the listening experience becomes.) It started paying off for me and my mixes started becoming more predictable in terms of sounding good outside of the control room.

Now, this is just me and my own experience. Obviously there are lots of people who prefer to work with their monitors spread pretty wide, because almost every control room I work in requires that I move the monitors in a bit to accomodate my tastes. But it works for me.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

ClownMonkey · Post by **ClownMonkey** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:29 pm

Thanks all.

Well these aren't like super-duper monitors. And yeah they are the only ones I will have. JBL Control 1's. OK, stop laughing. It was funnier what I was doing before to mon my mixes. heh. <ahem>

Hey Chris, I couldn't help but notice you are in Charlotte. Me too. Woo. Queen City. Woo. <ahem>

Do you know our drummer (John Ehlers)?

Holy shT! I just saw the pic with you, Don Dixon and Hoover at Pfeiffer (Misenheimer, NC). I actually graduated from PU. I loves teh Spongetones. You keep nice company. I'm going to see Poprocket Saturday at the WFM. woot.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:00 pm

ericcavanaugh wrote:Hey Chris, I couldn't help but notice you are in Charlotte. Me too. Woo. Queen City. Woo. <ahem>

Yep yep. Born and raised. One of the few...

ericcavanaugh wrote:Do you know our drummer (John Ehlers)?

Hmmm... John Ehlers, John Ehlers... oh, yeah, THIS GUY. (I was on his show earlier this year.)

ericcavanaugh wrote:Holy shT! I just saw the pic with you, Don Dixon and Hoover at Pfeiffer (Misenheimer, NC). I actually graduated from PU. I loves teh Spongetones. You keep nice company.

Yeah, I've got cool friends. Jamie is one of my best buddies. I love him. I talked to him on the phone yesterday, actually. Great guy, great musician. We've logged a lot of playing and studio hours together. He got me the gig with Dixon. In fact, Jamie just did a version of "American Squirm" for that Nick Lowe Tribute Record with me on drums and Dixon on bass.

ericcavanaugh wrote:I'm going to see Poprocket Saturday at the WFM. woot.

I talked to Jay the day before yesterday. Poprocket's my favorite band around here. I recorded Indie Rot. I'm a lucky guy. That's one of my favorite things I've ever worked on. Jay's such a brilliant guy. Great writer. Lots of fun to hang with. Such a great music enthusiast. I'm bummed that I'm not going to be in town this weekend. I'd totally go.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

jmoose · Post by **jmoose** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:46 pm

cgarges wrote:After years of working with wherever the monitors were in a given room, I started realizing that while I thought I was being a real badass in terms of stereo width and spatial placement (via phase relationship manipulation, Haas effect, or whatever), my mixes never had the same depth and spatial response when I took them out of the control room. I started thinking about how often I listen to music from the exact center of an equalateral triangle except in a control room environment and realized the answer was "pretty much never." So I started experimenting with moving my monitors closer together and that meant I had to work harder to make those kind of spatial things happen for more normal speaker placement.

Wow man, that's the first good reason I've seen to move the monitors closer together! Typically I'm somewhere around the 3-4' mark and that seems to work for me...but I've always been flummoxed by people that place the monitors about a foot apart. When I've tried it I can't get a good idea of what the stereo spread is like on anything! How long did it take you to adjust to having them close together, or was it more like you tried it one day and it was a revelation?

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:58 pm

jmoose wrote:more like you tried it one day and it was a revelation?

That's pretty much it. I had to get used to finding ways to work harder at making things seem wider, but the results were pretty much predictable right off the bat. I'm not talking about a foot apart (although I've got a set of NS10s at my home-base studio now that sit on the meter bridge and are about a foot apart), but not necessarily four or five feet out. It's just where it feels good to my ears, which I'm finding is almost always in a bit narrower than where the monitors usually live in any rooms in which I work.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

jmoose · Post by **jmoose** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:36 pm

Yah, so you're probably somewhere around where I place mine...in that 3-4' triangle. I've worked in a few places with the "super spread" myself and you're right...it's easy to feel like a badass with super-wide placement & imaging that just doesn't translate to the outside world because even minor moves are so exaggerated. In my room I also have a pair of Minimus 7's stacked up and placed about five feet off to my right for the pseudo mono 'car' vibe and the mono speaker in the A80. Even though the "stack" is far enough away to effectively be mono, it's still not true mono.

bniesz · Post by **bniesz** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:02 am

the simplest answer possible is that they sould form and equilateral triangle from you. so the distance between depends on their distance from you

bniesz · Post by **bniesz** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:10 am

from a link above....

This image seems off:

the left vector doesn't reflect at the same angle it occurs.
isn't that why consoles are tilted so begin with, so they only reflect to the listener at one incident?

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how far apart to place nearfield monitors?

how far apart to place nearfield monitors?

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