speakers upside down when monitoring, tweeters-bottom, woofer-top, why not...

[ine-kpro...]

- to prevent boominess, aren't we better off having the woofers further from the floor or flat surface?

i have a desk that has two little rack cabinets, left and right on top of the desk that look like this
http://www.omnirax.com/site/show_pro...p?pid=18&cid=1
where i put my speakers on top. the speakers i refer to are ns10s, bm6p, bm15p, aurotones.
- it gets rather boomy, would turning it upside down reduce boomyness and boxiness from the speakers. i am using speaker spikes which have helped control this but the closer speakers to the center where the lcd screen is tends to be more boomy/boxy.
- the desk is rather tall and when i sit down for mixing position, the tweeters are actually above my head. if i turn the speaker upside down, it actually is more lined up to my ear. would there be anything wrong with having them upside down. do speakers exhibit more problems like phazing and stereo imaging deformity by allowing the tweeters to be too close to the floor or any surface.

speakers on a flat table
- would a speaker benefit more from being upside down or is the rule that woofers close to the floor and tweeters as far from the ground or any reflection as possible.

[max cooper]

There are a couple of pair of ATC's upside-down at Crystalphonic Studios. I don't know why, but I think that at least in the case of the 150's, it may have something to do with the fact that they're on pretty high stands, and they need to be inverted to get the tweeter nearer to ear-level.

http://www.crystalphonic.com/flash.html

[peeceebee]

Yeah, barring weird low-end resonances and such, the main issue is the tweeter-ear relationship- Our ears localise sound mainly in the high frequencies, and also phase problems from early reflections etc. are more pronounced in the highs due to shorter wavelengths, so reflection paths from tweeters to the ears is critical-

[max cooper]

Right, so low freq's are less directional than highs. If your monitors are sitting on a hard surface, you're gonna have reflections either way. Whether they're inverted or not will affect this too, as will how high your ears are. Angle of incedence equals angle of reflection and all that.

[seriousfun]

Your predicted boominess is, yes, caused largely by reflections, and also by their interaction with room modes; particularly below 100 Hz, the vertical location of the woofer can influence this.

I have my center channel in a5.1 system mounted upside-down. The three front speaker tweeters are then level, pointed toward my listening spot at the same angle. Not ideal, but better than having the C tweeter a speaker-height avoe the L and R tweeters.

[u b k]

my truths sit upside down on top of my ns10's, that puts their tweeters at ear level.
they don't image quite as well that way, but my mixes translate beautifully.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

[monobeat]

we have quite tall boutique speakers (sehring-audio.de). they are hung upside down and slightly angeld from the ceiling to optimize line between tweeter and ear.

great speakers, great results!

cheers monobeat

[mbrebes]

Originally Posted by ine-kpro...

- to prevent boominess, aren't we better off having the woofers further from the floor or flat surface?

i have a desk that has two little rack cabinets, left and right on top of the desk that look like this

speakers on a flat table
- would a speaker benefit more from being upside down or is the rule that woofers close to the floor and tweeters as far from the ground or any reflection as possible.

The norm is to keep speakers away from where wall meets wall(s). When the speaker is placed too close, the wall corner acts as a bass reflex port which increases the bass. As far as the high frequencies, keep them away from close hard surfaces that can reflect the sound to the listener, which would cause more of a comb filter effect.. Looking at your console, they are high enough from the board that you could put them upside down and they wouldn't be radiating into any hard surfaces.
Hope that helps

[noiseintheattic]

Using BM15a for my somewhat small control room with custom desk - speakers are on "bookshelfs" like the pic that the original poster had. We shot the room with Genelec's new software and mic system and at the listening postion - the dyns were flatter upside down (they are sitting on mopads). My desk is a bit too high as well and the upside down thing is way better for my application - the ears and the graph were strongly in agreement. -- Rob

[ine-kpro...]

ive just put my bm6 upside down. when listening, it seems like the bass is coming from the top of my head. i feel though that it doesnt seem as open or the sound doesn't sound like its engulfing the room specially the bottom half of the room. is this a good thing?

the tweeters now have the surface of the rack top shelving like this. i have a very long rack top as illustrated below.

{

<
________ <--- rack top
...............]
...............]
console rack--------------]


< = tweeter
{ = woofer


so any sound spreading to the floor from the tweeter is now being directly reflected up by the rack top.

will the sound reflected from the rack top back up cancel out any sound coming straight out of the tweeter like so

tweeter< -----> sound
................./\ <-sound reflected up from rack top

what kind of problems am i facing with this situation?

is it better to have the tweeters below the line of your ears or above because they seem to be the only choice i have. either put pillows on my chair or crouch down a bit when mixing.

[StudioKing]

I recently re possitioned my Dynaudio M3s. I had the so that the tweeters and mids were on the outer side of the cabinets and the bass drivers were in the middle.

I thought that i would get a wider stereo image this way... but i was very wrong.

I swapped them round and i cant believe the differance, i think it is because i sit quite near them, but now the detail i always thought they lacked is there and i no longer flick over to my smaller monitors as i dont feel the need to.

I was over the moon, it was like a major studio upgrade for free!!!
I feel like a right idiot for going nearly a year with them the other way, i guess it wast the thought of moving them on my own that was putting me

[vixapphire]

i had a pair of old JBL 4311's for the longest time. wonderful speakers. why is this relevant to the discussion of upside-down speakers? well, they were designed that way; all the printing on the things, the labeling of the mid and tweet adjustments, etc. were all "upside down". made for sitting on stands/console top with the small drivers at ear level.

wow, i miss those things...thumbsup