Is the 38% rule good for long control rooms?

[Armans]

Hello! I have been reading up on the correct listening position for my new control room which is more than 12meters long. If my monitors are soffit mounted and I sit @ the recommended 38% of the length of the room I will be over 4 meters away from the speakers. Isn't this too far away? I have Yamaha MSP7 "nearfield" monitors.

[Soundman2020]

With a large room like that, you have many options. It might be possible to get the speakers far enough into the room that the SBIR artifacts from the front wall will not be an issue. You'd have to do the math and see if it works out or not.

I would also suggest that you keep all of your posts and questions together in one single thread, your own design/build thread. If you keep on adding new threads all over, you'll find it difficult to keep track of all the questions and answers in the future, and so will other people who are following your project.

So choose one of your threads (the one that best describes your project), or start a new one if you prefer, then in one of your first posts on that thread add a series of links to all of you current questions. That will help to tie things together.

- Stuart -

[Armans]

With a large room like that, you have many options. It might be possible to get the speakers far enough into the room that the SBIR artifacts from the front wall will not be an issue. You'd have to do the math and see if it works out or not

- Stuart -

when you say "get the speakers far enough into the room" do you mean on stands instead of soffit mounting?

[Soundman2020]

when you say "get the speakers far enough into the room" do you mean on stands instead of soffit mounting?

Right. If you want to soffit-mount (highly recommended!) then the soffit itself can come out into the room a bit. With a large room like yours, there are many options.

- Stuart -

[Armans]

when you say "get the speakers far enough into the room" do you mean on stands instead of soffit mounting?

Right. If you want to soffit-mount (highly recommended!) then the soffit itself can come out into the room a bit. With a large room like yours, there are many options.

- Stuart -

I know you guys here recommend soffit mounting and I wanted to do that. I imagine however, that the mounting would have to come out quite a lot for me to be in the 38% position.

[Soundman2020]

I imagine however, that the mounting would have to come out quite a lot for me to be in the 38% position.

38% is not written in stone. It is not a rule at all, actually! It's just a useful starting point, when calculating the best location for the mix position. It was never intended to be used as a "rule": Wes Lachot regrets that he ever mentioned it, since for some reasons every now thinks that 38% is the only place in the room where the mix position can be, and that it must be precisely, exactly 38%. Not true. There are MANY factors that a designer will consider when deciding on where to put the mix position, with minimal modal activity being just one of them, and not even the most important one. I don't think I have every designed a room where the mix position ended up at exactly 38%...

- Stuart -