J. Anthony Allen shows how to position studio monitors in a bedroom or small space. Form an equilateral triangle between the two speakers and your listening position, angle them at your ears, and isolate them from the desk with foam or stands to avoid muddy bass. Perfect setups are rare, but getting close enough works.
Okay, let's talk about the best way to set up your speakers. Now, I'm going to remind you that the way that there is a perfect way to set things up, but the perfect situation never really happens. I mean, it does in a million dollar studio. But if you're mixing in your bedroom and you can't make this perfect situation happen, just get as close as you can and you'll be okay. I'll show you in a minute my setup, which is not perfect. It has problems. So first of all, so let's go back to our drawing here. So this is us. Okay, this is called the mixed position. This is where we're gonna sit. Right. Oops, I didn't mean to spin it. But that's okay, I guess. Doesn't really matter. Okay, so we're gonna assume we're gonna sit right here at our desk. So I have a triangle here. Perfect triangle, equilateral triangle, if you. You will. So first I'm going to rotate this. So what I want basically is a triangle between the two speakers and the mix position. Okay. So I'm going to put this and I'm just going to put the tip of the triangle right in the center of the speaker. Okay. And let's make it a little smaller. Okay, so here's the tip of one triangle. Here's the tip of the other triangle. Okay, so that makes this tip down here. So that means I have to move this out of the way for a sec. That means the perfect mix position is right here. Okay, so we're going to have to slide way back from our desk. We could make the mix position closer if we could move our speakers in farther. Right. If our speakers were in up there. Let's bring these to the front so we can see where our speakers are. Okay, so if our speakers were right there. Okay, now our mixed position gets quite a bit closer. Okay, let's bring this to the front now too. Okay, let's get our. That looks pretty good. Okay, now our mixed position is up here. Okay. So we want basically the same distance between the two speakers to be the same distance between the mix position. Now I'll tell you, my mix position is not perfect in this way. So I have a situation kind of similar to this right here. And I sit here. Okay, so that all that really means is that I'm in a pretty good mixed position. But when I really want to make sure I'm hearing everything perfectly, then I just scooch back a little bit. Oops, let me grab that. I have to scooch back a little bit to here to be in the absolute perfect spot. But most of the time I'm mixing up here, and then I double check it by moving back to here. And that's okay. I mean, that's not perfect, but it's okay. So three things to keep in mind when you're placing your speakers. First is the distance between them. Okay. And that makes this triangle. Okay. Second thing is the angle of the monitors. Okay, so let's say, Let's make our monitors a square. So if the speaker is right here, okay. So that means sound is coming out this way. It's heading out, going down in this case. So we want it to head straight towards us. So we're gonna angle it right to be just like that. So let's say, let's get rid of that. And this is actually what we have. Okay. So there's our speaker. Okay. It's heading right towards us. So. And that's typically what we want. You want the speaker pointed right at you. You want to make sure that both speakers are at the same angle. Now, one old trick that's been done forever is if you have any kind of little mirror, just put a little mirror on your speaker right here and then sit right here. And then. And put another little mirror on. On this speaker. And then make sure you can see your face in that speaker and that speaker at the same time. That'll tell you that they're pretty much at the same angle. That's an okay way to do it. Now, there are also. I mean, some people like to sit a little off center. They don't want these pointed directly at them. Some people like them to be pointed directly at them. Kind of depends on the speaker, really. Once you get a set of speakers, then, you know, you'll kind of find the sweet spot where you like to sit. I like to have them pointed right at me, right at my ears. So. But that's just me. Other people want them a little off center. Okay. The third thing to think about is how they're mounted. You can put them right on your desk, or you can put them on a stand. The most important thing, though, is that you've got a little bit of something in between them and your desk. Let's look over here at this. So what we really want is not this. See how these speakers are sitting right on the desk? That's generally not what we want. I think maybe they are for this picture. Just because someone was being ridiculous and said, how many speakers can I get? What we typically do is put a little piece of. Put some foam here or even, like a little strip of carpet or something like that can help. Just something so that the vibrations don't push down into your desk. That can cause some distortion in the low end. Here you have a stand, and there's probably some rubber or something on the stand and then the stands going down into the carpet. So that's okay. But typically, try not to put your speakers directly on your desk. Like this. That's kind of a. No, no. Okay. We don't like that. So try to put some foam in between the speaker and your desk or whatever they're sitting on. Cool. Okay.
