New Mackies Arriving - Speaker Placement

[BPlayer]

Hi Guys,

I have a pair of Hr824mk2's arriving this week. Sadly I don't have a great room for them. It's actually an office about 14' X 14' that was added on to my house. They will be placed against a brickwall. The other 2 walls that are available have windows behind them. Any suggestions on where to place them? Also any opinions on the new 824mk2's? I currently am running the Tannoy Reveal 8D's and looking forward to comparing them.

All comments appreciated !

[xander.moser]

One of the most important things for monitor placement is symmetry. By that I mean make sure that the sides of the room immediately to the left and right of the monitors should be the same. If the wall on your right is significantly closer to the one on your left, you'll get more reflections off that wall, causing a shift of the image. Make sure there are no large objects close by to the sides of the monitors. Also, if possible, try not to have any large, flat surfaces between you and the monitors, like the surface of a desk or table. This can cause reflections and thus comb filtering in the higher frequencies. Obviously getting rid of a desk is not always practical, but you get the point.

They've got rolloff and shelving controls, so if you need to back them up close to a wall you can compensate for that.

Do you have any acoustic treatments in the room yet? Or any materials available? A great speaker will still sound bad in a bad room.

A square room is generally not acoustically ideal, it allows for lots of standing waves to build up. Bass traps or a divider in the room may help.

What will you be using them for? Mixing, editing, or just listening?

[BPlayer]

xander.moser,

Thanks for the comments. The sides of the room to the left and right of the monitors are the same length except there is a door opening on one of the walls. I do not have any acoustic treatments yet. I hope to one day finish a room in my basement and do it up right acoustically. I have a ProTools, Creation Station rig where I play a lot of instruments and do a lot of the one-man-band thing. I do record some demos ocassionally for some local bands but nothing big time. I will be using the Mackies mainly for mixing and editing however I will have them connected through a mixer so I can listen to CDs as well through them.

[xander.moser]

Sounds good, a door frame on the other side of the room won't make any difference, especially in an untreated room. The point is, you're not placing them so you're sitting next to a wall.

One thing I forgot to mention is the mirror rule. You may have heard this before. But pretend that there is a mirror on every surface of your room, you can temporarily place a mirror in spots to visually get this idea. If you can see your speakers in the mirror from your seating position, then that spot on the wall, or furniture or whatever, is what's called a first reflection point. The sound from the speakers will be hitting that surface, and reflect right to your head. These are some of the most critical spots in the room to apply acoustic treatment too, in the form of sound absorption or diffusion panels.

Enjoy your new speakers!