When it comes to using audio monitors, the minor details have a major role to play towards enhancing the quality of sound produced by the speakers. In a good number of cases, people tend to invest a fortune in audio monitors only to fail in placing them properly in their rooms. The result – they experience sub-par and unclear audio.
This improper speaker placement encourages huge valleys and peaks in your room’s frequency response. Since most people might also lack an acoustically superior room, and will instead mix and play music in their garages or empty homerooms, it is wise to use monitor placement in their favor. PreSonus continues to produce innovative and professional equipment at affordable prices. PreSonus Studio monitors are also a popular choice in the UK, where they are reviewed favourably by consumers.
Here’s a guide to finding the right audio monitor placement position:
Start By Identifying Your Listening Position
Your listening position will have a vital role to play when dictating the quality of audio you will enjoy. Start by situating your listening position facing the short length of the room so that your speakers will produce sound through the length of the room. It is preferred to face the shorter than the longer wall to enjoy a flatter bass response.
For reflection purposes, you need to maximize the distance that is between your ears and your room’s rear walls. In case your walls are pretty reflective, place your sitting position at least nine to ten feet away from the wall. Otherwise, you will have to treat it acoustically.
Find Symmetry in Your Rooms
Before deciding to upgrade your studio monitor, take some time to determine how symmetrical your room is. A room with an odd shape will affect the quality of the audio that gets into your ears. For instance, speaker A might demand a better room frequency response than speaker B.
The trick is to place the speakers in a symmetrical position to make any sound imbalances uniform throughout the room. A good example would be to set your speakers on a single wall instead of on different sides of a rectangular room.
Position Your Audio Monitors Along Short Walls
Sonic reflection is almost impossible to negate from any room, according to How Stuff Works. As sound gets produced by your speakers, some of it will be reflected on the walls and then back to your ears. The sound that gets reflected from a short wall will take less time to get to your ears than that reflected from a long wall.
The intensity of the sound lessens with the distance from which it is reflected. The sound that was reflected from a wall far away will not be as clear as that from short distances. Place your audio monitors along the short walls to enhance the clarity of the audio that reaches your ears.
Avoid Reflections from Hard Surfaces
Hard surfaces deal with audio the same way mirrors deal with light – they reflect it. If the original sound reaches you at the same time as the reflected sound, then the audio you are listening to will be altered (often known as comb filtering). Great examples of hard surfaces include windows, mirrors, drywall, and non-diffuse surfaces.
Your aim should be to direct the sound as far away from such surfaces as possible. To determine whether there will be any reflection of sound from a hard surface, place a mirror close to this surface and determine whether you can see the monitor in the mirror from the monitor’s position. If so, then you should shift the position of the monitor. Alternatively, apply absorption to the reflective surface to ensure that minimal sound reflection occurs.
Place Your Tweeters at Ear Level
One way to destroy the quality of audio that gets to your ears is to place your monitors too high or too low away from your ear level. Audio from monitors typically travels in a directional manner. More so, high frequencies will typically travel in a more directional manner than low frequencies. As a result, having placed the speakers at a level higher than that of your ears will mean that you will struggle to hear the high frequencies.
To experiment on this, face the monitors to your chair and play one of your favorite songs. Shift the monitors to a level higher than your ears and one lower than them. You will notice the difference. If you want to succeed in placing the monitors at the right level, buy a good stand for them.
Form An Equilateral Triangle
Both the listener and the monitors should form an equilateral triangle for a strong stereo image. The reference point should be at the back of the listener’s head. This ensures that the tweeters of your monitor are facing your ears as you embrace the equilateral rule.
The good thing is that it is quite easy to obey this rule. Starting from your reference point, draw lines at an angle of 30° both to the right and left. When it comes to positioning the speakers, ensure that their tweeters are situated on the axis of the lines you have drawn. Alternatively, draw an imaginary line to surround your reference point and place your speakers 60° apart from each other.
Consider Flush Mounting Your Speakers
If your monitors are specifically designed to be flush mounted, feel free to mount them on your wall. With proper flush mounting, you can enjoy having no reflections from your front wall as well as no speaker boundary interference. This ensures that your monitors and walls are musically in harmony.
Additionally, this increases the efficiency of your monitors in producing low frequencies as it increases acoustics loading. In case you still have speakers that weren’t specifically designed for flush loading, you can contact your manufacturer to get expert advice on how to approach the issue.
Flush mounting is often confused with soffit mounting. Unlike the former, soffit mounting is where the speakers are flush-mounted on a recessed ceiling (soffit), and they direct their sound down to the listener. However, soffit mounting often results in resonance in the space below the speakers.
Conclusion
Buying quality audio monitors will only take you half the journey when your aim is to optimally listen to music. All it takes to succeed is to find a sweet spot in your listening environment. Consider the above tips to enjoy an amazing audio experience.