Should monitors be angled inward towards listening position?

[PheelTheMusic]

Would you all recommend that I place my studio monitors angled in towards the listening position or strictly perpendicular to the front/rear walls? They're set up angled inward right now and I'm wondering if there is a general better practice or if it simply depends on the room. I'll go experiment shortly.

Also, I have my monitors on Auralex MoPads right now, slightly angled downward so that the tweeter aims at my ears. Without the tilt, the tweeter will be higher than ear-level. Is tilting a bad idea or is this also room dependent?

How do you have yours set up???

[zwaps]

Yes absolutely. No matter what, the tweeters point at your ear.

[The dman]

My humble opinion would be to take a song your very familiar with and listen to it with the different monitor placements your talking about, do it with a friend who's ear you trust just for backup. I don't think there's going to be a "one size fits all" answer to your question considering all the variables that come into play.

Good Luck

[HIGHENDONLY]

triangle. id say about 4 feet apart from each other. When sitting in your mix position, make sure they are equal distance from you and each monitor is facing right at you. You wanna be right in the sweet spot!!

[PheelTheMusic]

Originally Posted by zwaps

Yes absolutely. No matter what, the tweeters point at your ear.

Originally Posted by The dman

I don't think there's going to be a "one size fits all" answer to your question considering all the variables that come into play.

Good Luck

Apparently there are some differing viewpoints ...

[stephent28]

Originally Posted by HIGHENDONLY

triangle. id say about 4 feet apart from each other. When sitting in your mix position, make sure they are equal distance from you and each monitor is facing right at you. You wanna be right in the sweet spot!!

Ditto +1

[Todd24]

Originally Posted by stephent28

Ditto +1

+1 as a starting point. Then move them around and listen.

[Brad_Wood]

Point'em at yer head, where the ears reside.


Best- Brad

[squeegybug]

Depends on the monitors, dispersion, porting, room, related seating/desk/racks/walls/treatments/etc.

PMCs that I've had in here wanted to be close to me (~3 feet), spread fairly far apart (~6 feet), and pointed almost straight ahead. 3 feet or so from the front wall. Perfect for them.

Tannnoy, SLS, Dynaudio, others liked a simple equilateral triangle. A bit closer to the front wall was not really a problem. Perfect for them.

The Zu Druids that I use now want to be *far* apart (10 feet or so), directed to a point a little behind me, and pretty far away. Close to the wall is fine. Lovely sound, by far the most accurate for mixing/mastering I've ever found.

Height is then another issue. Some I liked with tweeters at ear level, some with ears between tweeter and woofer, some higher and some lower. I never liked tilting speakers. I have turned them upside down before if necessary. Rarely do speakers designed for vertical placement do well when placed on their sides, in my experience.

Also, bass response can of course vary depending on room position of speakers and seating. Some testing is definitely in order for any monitor system.

Steve

[theblue1]

Point them toward the listener's head.

They're called near field monitors because the whole point of them is to minimize side-reflection (early reflection).

Unlike consumer speakers where you want a wide dispersion to spread the optimal listening area around the room -- with NFMs you're looking to focus the optimal sound in one sweet spot and minimize the high/mid frequencies hitting the sidewalls (because they make it harder to know what's really going on with your sound).

For that reason, NFM tweeters are designed to NOT have too wide a dispersion pattern...

If you point NFMs in parallel lines your sweet spot is basically at the end of the universe.

An equilateral triangle with monitors pointed toward the listener's head is the rule of thumb for near field monitoring. Minimize side reflections -- and minimize reflections off mixing desks or work tables.

[NathanEldred]

Originally Posted by theblue1

An equilateral triangle with monitors pointed toward the listener's head is the rule of thumb for near field monitoring. Minimize side reflects -- and minimize reflections off mixing desks or work tables.

Right. And the only way to achieve that (speaking to the original poster) is with the speakers at an angle. I've got my tweets 6 ft apart, which puts me 6 ft from the speakers, which is just off the console...a nice place to be. By forcing myself to pull away from the console just a couple of feet forces my attention away from knobs and the screen and to the music even more so.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by PheelTheMusic

Would you all recommend that I place my studio monitors angled in towards the listening position

Yes, and the reason is simple - all speakers have the flattest response on-axis. As soon as you're off to the side an effect called "lobing" occurs, where the response has a series of dips at different frequencies. This is also why speakers should not be higher than ear level pointing down, as you sometimes see. That could work if you never moved your head, but most people lean forward and back a little as they sit, so that puts your ears in and out of the "sweet spot." And for someone sitting behind you, they're always off-axis.

--Ethan