Speaker placement / height

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elastic
Posts: 55
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:30 pm
Location: England, UK

Speaker placement / height

Post by elastic »

Hey all, couple of quick questions, pretty much finished building my new studio, walls are splayed, ceiling is angled etc for the sound, bass trap built into the rear wall, etc etc....I’m just tweaking my monitor setup.

Monitors - Genelec 8040B
Studio use - Mixing and production for mostly electronic music
Room length - approx 5m /// width - approx just over 3m /// height varies at all points of room, highest point above where I sit is 2.6m
(Behind that front wall is 15mm plasterboard, OSB and infilled with rockwool rw3)

In the pic below, I have it setup as an equilateral triangle, I am sitting about 38% of the way into the room, but I’m unsure of these things -

Firstly...

The height of my ears from the ground is 122cm when I sit in my chair
The height of between the bass cone and tweeter on the genelecs is 133cm
- I thought this height should be the same?
I also heard that the speakers should be min 120cm off the ground, so if I lowered the speakers down to get them to my ear height, they would fall below the 120cm height recommendation.

My stands are not height adjustable, but they are filled with sand and very sturdy.
My genelecs can be angled down on their rubber pads/block underneath them.

What’s the best thing to do here? Leave as is and tilt the speakers down so they fire down towards my ear or lower the stands somehow.


Second thing....

Placement from the front wall. How far should I place the speakers from the front wall? They are currently 30cm from the wall. Would it be better to bring them closer to the wall? Only thing that concerns me is I’d have to bring my desk and sweet spot forward a bit then to make the equilateral triangle right again.

Thanks for any ideas or help, much appreciated :D
Screen Shot 2020-12-13 at 21.07.27.png
DanDan
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:31 am
Location: Cork Ireland
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Re: Speaker placement / height

Post by DanDan »

Well done, very pro looking finish.
Location Location Location. Finding the optimum locations for speakers and listener is an exremetly influential activity. The cheapest most powerful intervention available to us.
It would be best to decide on every aspect by testing. By measuring the response.
I would encourage amnesia regarding rules of thumb. Testing Trumps Theory.
Unfortunately everything here is interactive. Thus it can take a while, and be very very confusing......
Best to try to pin down a few parameters first.
e.g.
Start with the speakers touching the Front Wall. Find the corresponding optimum Mic position.
Consider the vertical dispersion of your Gennies, try tweaking the height looking for LF improvement.
Ditto Width.
Move the speaker say 50mm forward away from the wall. Check if the optimum listener position has moved.
You could check your width and height again.
Some parameters will settle down, e.g. Height and probably Width.
If find an RTA zoomed to LF, with Pink Noise, will identify trends particularly no go areas quickly.
elastic
Posts: 55
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:30 pm
Location: England, UK

Re: Speaker placement / height

Post by elastic »

Thanks Dan, appreciate that. I figured a lot of testing might be the way.

im just about to start using rew, I have a Mac Pro 2020 model, behringer ecm8000 and mic stand, my interface is a focusrite Safire pro 40, speakers are Genelec 8040B.

am I ok to put the behringer mic into the xlr input of the Safire pro (using phantom power) to do my measurements?

any other tips or advice I should do so I can record accurate measurements?
DanDan
Senior Member
Posts: 637
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:31 am
Location: Cork Ireland
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Re: Speaker placement / height

Post by DanDan »

REW has grown and grown, so it will appear quite complex to any beginner. Play around with it to get familiar. The RTA and Pink Noise give instant visual results. So you can see if you start moving the speakers wider and a hole develops in the LF, go back to the sweet width.
The Behringer will do the job.
https://www.avnirvana.com/threads/some- ... post-49827
Rao Shaheryar
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2021 4:15 pm
Location: USA
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Re: Speaker placement / height

Post by Rao Shaheryar »

Yeah! Play around with it to get familiar. The RTA and Pink Noise give instant visual results . So you can see if you start moving the speakers wider and a hole develops in the LF, go back to the sweet width.by the way Thanks Dan, appreciate that, I figured a lot of testing might.
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