Speaker position..?

[Tifstorey]

Just started a new job in a studio down the road from me. As you can see in the pic, the left speaker is partly covered by the desk/rack unit.



The studio has just been built and is ready to open in 1 weeks time. I've just had a day with the folk that built it and i was eager to ask if the desk being in the way would affect the sound in any way. The answer was of course, no and i find it hard not believing them as they put so much money/design into the acoustics of the room.

But this seems to go against what i've learnt in the past 5 years of education.. It's not that i don't believe them of course.. But just interested in other peoples opinions on this one.

[sureno]

of coarse its in the way
you have a physical object blocking the direct path correct? there for you will hear the partial signal and the rest will be reflections right?

[Tifstorey]

Well, yeah - that's what i've always thought/learnt. But the guy who set it all up said it wouldn't affect it any more than the computer monitors will affect it.

The guy who came to explain everything was clearly a clever bloke having designed most of it himself aswell as being a mastering engineer so i was hardly in the position to argue!

[sphelan]

Maybe it depends on how far apart you ears are!!!

Sorry!

From what I know, it HAS to affect things. But then I stand to be corrected. It looks like a very nice set up so part of me says the guy MUST know what he's talking about.

Wait to see what Trev, Frank, Dave etc etc have to say about it!!

[TrevCircleStudios]

Please tell him I said he is talking bollocks. Feel free to give him my number. Ask him to explain to you the concept of a "Reflection Free Zone". Sheesh, I can't believe some people get away with charging for this kind of crap.

For goodness sakes the reason people use near and midfields is because it's come to be understood that there can be significant colouring of sounds from mains because there's so much for them to reflect off (and that's when they are at an appropriate height without any gear directly in front of them).

[Tifstorey]

Yeah, well - as i said, i thought it was odd when i saw it in the pictures initially. Then when i went into the actual studio and saw it it baffled me even more. Questioning him, he just explained that it wouldn't affect the sound, 'no more than the computer monitors will'.

From what i know, most of the budget was spent in the acoustics of the studio and these guys aren't a small company either! I'll give him a ring on Monday and just ask him again why it was done. (Then i'll leave him a voicemail leaving Trevs compliment )

The desk isn't in sections so i can't move part of it to the left unfortunately. Might be worth checking if the whole desk will move 6-9" to the left though, that might be a fix.

[Dave Boulden]

I'm rather bemused as to why

1) There aren't any nearfields? Or...
2) If those are the nearfields, why they aren't "near"?

Of course, as already confirmed by Trev, the desktop rack will obviously cause problems with the sound, I would think a rather nasty inhibition of any kind of stereo imaging, due to hearing reflections first for the left hand speaker as you have quite rightly identified.

If you want to persuade them to make some kind of fix, try and get them to buy a couple of solid floor standing speaker stands, place them right behind the desk and put the nearfields on them, though the height placement is going to be a bit of a compromise due to the height of the rack, bur perhaps sitting them on MoPADs or something similar will point them back downwards at a suitable angle to be perpendicular to your ears.

[Tifstorey]

We were contemplating that. We (I say we, the manager) have a budget for the remaining bits for the studio. Monitors are on the list, but again, it's where do we put them.. We also need to get a few remaining mics, cables, plug ins and other bits and bats so it depends if it'll stretch.

I'm going to have a look later today to see if we can move the whole desk round to the left slightly. Will make it look less appealing, but it'd be better to mix on.

Other than that, i'll be ringing the fella up and asking him again why he's done it for sure.

Thanks again for the advice all,

[sphelan]

Yeah, send Trev around to have a chat with him!! That should solve it!

[I_Am_Bic_Pentameter]

I've never read - 'make sure something is directly in its path for it to sound at its best' - in any manual.