Ensuring proper positioning for your studio monitors is perhaps the most important step in setting up any listening environment. Improperly-placed monitors can trick your ears in a number of ways that will inevitably result in very poor decision-making in the context of a mix. Luckily, there are a few steps you can take to make sure that your monitors are in the best possible place for mixing.
The Right Distance
For starters, make sure your monitors are placed anywhere from 1 to 3 feet off the back wall. When deciding how far from the back wall you should go, keep in mind that you will need proportionally more distance from the side walls than you will from the back wall.
Listening Position
Ideally, the listening position should reside somewhere toward the center of the room. This will help combat the reflective properties of the room (in addition to studio foam or other forms of acoustic treatment). The sweet spot can be found by forming an equilateral triangle between the left and right tweeters and the listening position. When mixing in the listening position, the tweeters should ideally be around eye level. This ensures that those high frequencies are aimed where they will be most accurately received.
Subwoofer Position
Now that the monitors are in their proper positions, finding the best spot for a subwoofer can be challenging to some. We recommend putting the subwoofer in the listening position and running some low sine waves, or music that has a prominent low end, and moving along the plane of the speakers to find where the bass response sounds and feels the most “natural.” When you find that spot—whether it be in the center, or slightly off to one side – place your subwoofer there.
Talk with a Sound Pure Expert
Keep in mind: this is simply a basic overview made to get you on the right track when setting up your own listening environment. If you want to learn more about how to optimize your monitor setup with specific details pertinent to your situation, contact one of our Pro Audio Specialists today! Give us a call at (919) 682-5552, or email us at proaudio@soundpure.com. We would love to hear from you!