Studio Speaker Placement

doctorfish wrote on 4/11/2002, 11:15 PM

Wow! An audio question!!!

In the course of setting up a very small studio,
I have two options regarding placement of the
speakers in the control room.

I can place them along the long wall and get a little better
spread and set up my equipment in a more comfortable manner,
but if I do this my back touches the wall behind me if I lean back.
(Yes, it's a narrow room.) There is material on the walls to prevent
reflections, but I still wondered if I should worry about being so close
to the back wall.

My other option is to place my speakers along the shorter wall,
but if I do this they'll be quite close together, about 3 1/2 feet.
Does this seem too close to get a accurate idea of the stereo image?
Along the other wall the speakers are about 5 1/2 feet apart, and in
both cases I'm a little over an arm's length away.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks

Dave
Sound English Studio

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/11/2002, 11:21 PM

Ideally, the speakers should be half as far apart from each other as they are from you. So if you wanted to sit 5 feet back from them, they should be 2.5 feet apart from each other. I would also avoid the position that has your head up against the rear wall. The reflections from the wall will definately alter the way it sounds to you.

doctorfish wrote on 4/12/2002, 2:38 AM

Interesting. I figured there must be some logical formula
to this as far as ratios of speaker to listener and speaker to speaker.
It seems my scenerio along the long wall is backwards in that regard.

Thanks for the tip.

Dave

nlamartina wrote on 4/12/2002, 2:37 PM

Dave,

The way I learned it is to create an equilateral triangle with your head and the speakers, which yields a similar distance to Kelly’s method. Also, try and have the tweeters at ear level (if your speakers are 2 or 3-way). Finally, avoid sitting the speakers too close to the wall, as it will make the bass swell and get muddy.

Hope this helps,
Nick LaMartina

DataMeister wrote on 4/14/2002, 3:56 PM

I too learned the equilateral triangle method of placement. In that the distance between the speakers should be the same as the distance between each speaker and the listener.

However, the official Dolby recommendation for a 5.1 mixing environment says that with the center in the center, the Left and Right speakers should be at 30 degress off of center. That means the Left and Right speakers would form a 60 degree angle from the viewer. That also means the angles between the other speaker and the listener would also form 60 degree angles. Hence making it an equilateral triangle.

The surround channels are then placed at 110 degrees from either side of the center.

I dont' know how that affects simple stereo setup standards, but I can't imagine there being a contradiction between the two.

The PDF file contains a diagram if you need a visual. From Dolby's site it is listed under the Techincal Information page, in the Dolby Digital (AC-3) section, a file called "5.1 Channel Production Guidelines". There is a print version and a screen version. The information is in Chapter 3 under the Monitoring section. Here is a link to the Technical Information of the Dolby web site:

http://www.dolby.com/tech/

I hope this helps.
JBJones