Why are speakers measured at 1 meter?
- Thread starter Cal Weldon
- Start date
It is just a standard so that you can compare apples to apples.
You don't necessarily do so for a design measurement. You measure at whatever distance is necessary to get good data. I stay in the far-field unless I want to confirm a bass measurement and the definition of where that is depends upon the size of the device you are measuring.
You don't necessarily do so for a design measurement. You measure at whatever distance is necessary to get good data. I stay in the far-field unless I want to confirm a bass measurement and the definition of where that is depends upon the size of the device you are measuring.
That's a pretty serious forklift to get it high enough for (sub)woofers.
Altec had an impressive elevated platform for LF cab measurements that hoisted them 26 ft up IIRC. The A4 bass horn under test is 84" x 80.5" x 39.5": http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/catalogs/1949/page2.jpgGM
I'd think "in-room" measurements might be better if they were even closer that one meter, depending on the size of the room.
But yeah, it was always my understanding, it's an arbitrarily standard distance at which to measure SPL (for speaker or driver sensitivity) generated with 1 watt electrical power input, and not necessarily used for any other purpose.
I think that's just the NS-10's, used as a check-mix to make sure it sounds good on cheap home and car stereos. The real studio speakers are often mounted in the wall.I know at Recording Studios the speakers in most studios sit in the end of the mixing board about 3' away..
Thats how its done when the music is mixed
Nah, the speakers (Genelec, jbl, whatever) are often on the consoles meterbridge.
Large in wall speakers, even if they do exist, arent that common anymore.
-Then, consoles and other hardware are also dissapearing in a fast pace, so mixing today is often done with the speakers next to the computermonitor.
David has it right.
Actually what you hear at 10' is similar to the off axis response.
Stereophile now has a "in room response" graph, that is more similar to what you will hear.
I never knew what this was till I ran a midrange cd horn in a 24' deep room, there was upper mids in the back of the room !!!!!!!!!!!
Norman
Actually what you hear at 10' is similar to the off axis response.
Stereophile now has a "in room response" graph, that is more similar to what you will hear.
I never knew what this was till I ran a midrange cd horn in a 24' deep room, there was upper mids in the back of the room !!!!!!!!!!!
Norman
What you're talking about is mainly budget set-ups used with Nearfield monitors. There are still studios using custom in wall monitors as well as mixing consoles, that do the heavy lifting for SOTA sound. It's true that it can be done fairly well with comparatively inexpensive gear, but the results won't be nearly as good.
Best Regards,
TerryO
I have not been in a studio since the early 90s and most of the editing was done with the mixing board speakers.. The main set is in that they call THE WAR ROOM where the sound is played back and they fight over what needs to done... In reality they use both sets of speakers when I think about it
It's not about where anybody listens, rather, characterizing the loudspeaker. The limitation is the distance from which a reflection-free measurement may be made in any given environment. Most everyone can get reasonable mid- and high-frequency resolution at 1M without heroics.
Trig quiz: ZilchLab has a 9'-3" ceiling height. Assuming the floor or ceiling generates the first reflection, what are the optimum measurement height and distance to achieve the longest reflection-free measurement window?
Last edited: