Hey everyone, my first post here. I´ve just moved in a new mixing room and are currently trying to find the best listening position. I attach a sketch of the room, which has already a lot of absorption installed. I use the Yamaha HS7 in my setup and placing them as close to the front wall as possible to get the most bass out of it and to remove almost all front wall SBIR. I already made some measurements using REW, where in each measurement the monitor is moved around 20 cm inwards from the side wall but keeping the short front wall distance. Blue (1st measurement), Orange 2nd, Green 3rd, Purple 4th.
What do you think? Thanks!
What do you think? Thanks!
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Were your speakers designed to suit this listening room or is your reflection profile essentially random?
Unfortunately the room was empty except for the already installed absorber, so I had to setup my own speakers. I can't say if the room was designed to suit the Yamahas.
Sorry, I should have noticed you mentioned the speakers. They are box speakers and small, so don't offer much control on their own. They may be suited to nearby listening, and if you used them for whole room listening would use acoustic treatment to help their performance.
Your listening position is going to depend on their early reflection profile, their reverberation profile and your modal bass response.
This is not a simple question to answer and the response plots you have offered unfortunately don't help in understanding those areas of performance.
Do you have any expectations that might override standard thinking on the topic?
Your listening position is going to depend on their early reflection profile, their reverberation profile and your modal bass response.
This is not a simple question to answer and the response plots you have offered unfortunately don't help in understanding those areas of performance.
Do you have any expectations that might override standard thinking on the topic?
I can provide waterfall plots If it helps. Do you need anything else? As for the speakers, the goal is to find the best positioning and in the last step apply some EQ using Sonarworks.
You say mixing room and you are using small studio monitors. Your goal is near field listening while mixing music? Your primary use is not general passive music listening?
Since you provided the room dimensions, I will run this thru CARA CAD later today. It’s a software to simulate rooms and optimize speaker placement. More info about the room treatment would be helpful. Post here or send me a message.
Since you provided the room dimensions, I will run this thru CARA CAD later today. It’s a software to simulate rooms and optimize speaker placement. More info about the room treatment would be helpful. Post here or send me a message.
I have always ended up closer to the speakers, which were themselves closer together than where I initially placed them. Every single time!
Speaker angle has always had the least effect on imaging. All over a period of about fifty years in many, many disparate rooms... Never made any measurements - all simply to my personal taste.
Speaker angle has always had the least effect on imaging. All over a period of about fifty years in many, many disparate rooms... Never made any measurements - all simply to my personal taste.
I ran a room simulation in CARA CAD. CARA thinks your room has too much absorption (it has a lot) and says this:
The calculations for speaker positions don't seem very useful for you, it wants you to keep away from the front wall, like this.
The room being so dead, you have a lot of positions where the sound will be clean, in these graphics for vocal clarity and overall sonics the darker areas or the best. I did see some build up at the listening position of 160-250Hz, more so than any other frequency range. I'll look to see if moving the speakers closer to the wall would change that.
The calculations for speaker positions don't seem very useful for you, it wants you to keep away from the front wall, like this.
The room being so dead, you have a lot of positions where the sound will be clean, in these graphics for vocal clarity and overall sonics the darker areas or the best. I did see some build up at the listening position of 160-250Hz, more so than any other frequency range. I'll look to see if moving the speakers closer to the wall would change that.
Thanks for testing! The room being so dead isn't that bad for a start? I can always install more diffusers if necessary. Does the software say the exact positioning of the speakers in the room? e.g.: distance from side and front wall?
Yes it did give me a couple of different positions, and I can constrain where the speakers are placed. I will post some of that in few minutes.
Basically it seems that pulling the speakers out into the room means a smoother frequency response at your listening position.
Basically it seems that pulling the speakers out into the room means a smoother frequency response at your listening position.
For the loudspeakers the room being dead is not a bad thing, for you it can be oppressing, it'll depend of how you tolerate this long term.
Diffusers can be nice but keep in mind you need 3 time lower wavelength they'll be effective distance to your listening position.
EG: lower effective freq 343hz, 1 wl=1m, you need 3m distance to them.
From the waterfall you gave i would ban any position where there is a notch at 80hz region: You'll constantly overcompensate for bass and kick and your work won't translate well.
From those waterfall iiread the correctly circa 100ms to be -35/-40db is indeed pretty dead.
Diffusers can be nice but keep in mind you need 3 time lower wavelength they'll be effective distance to your listening position.
EG: lower effective freq 343hz, 1 wl=1m, you need 3m distance to them.
From the waterfall you gave i would ban any position where there is a notch at 80hz region: You'll constantly overcompensate for bass and kick and your work won't translate well.
From those waterfall iiread the correctly circa 100ms to be -35/-40db is indeed pretty dead.
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When I gave the calculator a large choice of where to place the speakers and the listener (seen as the hashed areas) this was its best suggestion.
I suspect this is not what you want, but the calculation likes this the best. This is with the rear of the speakers 45cm from the front wall and 165cm left and right of the room center line. Listening position is 290cm from the front all. It might be worth listening to this, just for reference.
I suspect this is not what you want, but the calculation likes this the best. This is with the rear of the speakers 45cm from the front wall and 165cm left and right of the room center line. Listening position is 290cm from the front all. It might be worth listening to this, just for reference.
Here is something similar to what you have pictured.
Below I will post a plot of what the sims say.
the chart labeled "mixing room" is the speakers at the front wall. The chart labeled "mixing room 3" is with the speakers away from the walls.
What do we see here? Sound Pressure Level: This shows the predicted frequency response and levels at the listening position. Location Diagram is a little tricky. It shows how you would perceive the direction of the sound. +1 would be perfect location of the sound to the front (good) while -1 would mean that the sounds seem to come from the rear (not good). Obviously here with the very dead room, your direct sound gives a very, very clean sense of direction. The total of direct plus reflected will be ambiguous at some frequencies. That said, this is a very clean plot compared to most rooms, which are a mess. 🙂 The heavy damping does that. As @krivium mentions, there won't be much sense of space. But for mixing, that might be OK.
Below I will post a plot of what the sims say.
the chart labeled "mixing room" is the speakers at the front wall. The chart labeled "mixing room 3" is with the speakers away from the walls.
What do we see here? Sound Pressure Level: This shows the predicted frequency response and levels at the listening position. Location Diagram is a little tricky. It shows how you would perceive the direction of the sound. +1 would be perfect location of the sound to the front (good) while -1 would mean that the sounds seem to come from the rear (not good). Obviously here with the very dead room, your direct sound gives a very, very clean sense of direction. The total of direct plus reflected will be ambiguous at some frequencies. That said, this is a very clean plot compared to most rooms, which are a mess. 🙂 The heavy damping does that. As @krivium mentions, there won't be much sense of space. But for mixing, that might be OK.
Thanks for your effort. I ran a few tests again today. In general, it is noticeable that the bass becomes irregular the closer the speakers get to the center and the distance from the sidewall increases. The same happens when the speakers are moved forward (probably due to SBIR).
In all scenarios where the frequency response is stable in the bass range, i.e. below 100 Hz, the monitors are more than 1.50 m away from the listening position (in this case 38% rooms lengths). This is by keeping in mind the stereo triangle. This is not really practical with a table and a screen to work with. I'm also not sure if it's too far away from nearfield monitors...
In all scenarios where the frequency response is stable in the bass range, i.e. below 100 Hz, the monitors are more than 1.50 m away from the listening position (in this case 38% rooms lengths). This is by keeping in mind the stereo triangle. This is not really practical with a table and a screen to work with. I'm also not sure if it's too far away from nearfield monitors...