Introduction
Desk speaker placement is fundamental when it comes to setting up your audio space. Whether it is the placement on your desk or to a larger degree the placement in your room, this step has to be carefully studied.
We won’t go here into too much details about what happens if you don’t place your speakers well. You can read more about it in our article: 5 reasons why you should use speaker stands.
To answer the former question, we have to take a look at several points: the placement of the speakers relatively to the desk, to yourself and finally relatively to the room.
The speakers relatively to your desk
This one is quite simple : Decouple your speakers from your desk.
This means that you absolutely have to have something between your speakers and your desk. Whether it’s a stand (check out our high quality speaker stands) or at the very least a foam panel, please have something under there. This will tackle most of the issues related to parasite soundwaves and vibrations coming from your desk (for more info see our article 5 reasons why you should have speaker stands).
The speakers relatively to yourself
This one is important as it differs a bit from the common knowledge. Usually, when you place speakers in relation to a whole room you should try to be 4 to 6 feet away from them. In this case the distance between the speakers should be about 3 to 4 feet.
This often won’t be possible when it comes to desk studio monitors. On top of that it probably won’t be optimal to stand too far from small monitor speakers.
Therefore when it comes to the horizontal placement, a similar rule can be applied to the shorter distances: the triangle between you and both speakers, should be isosceles. In other words, you should be at the same distance from both speakers on the desk. This distance is ideally 5/4th of the distance between the speakers.
Example: Â if you are at 27 inches from the speakers, they should ideally be 21 inches apart.
Of course, this varies according to the speakers. But rule of thumb is, you can go with that ratio.
As for the horizontal angle of the speakers, it’s easier: look left and look right, you should look dead center in the woofer. The same logic applies if the speakers are placed higher (on a stand). You should tilt the stand for the woofer to be looking directly at you sitting at your desk.
For the height, it is the easiest: place the speakers (tweeter and woofer) at ear height. If you can’t, you always have the option of tilting them.
The 360° fexibility in placement can be very well achieved with speaker stands such as the TS-1.
Speakers and desk relatively to the room
Different rooms will call for different positioning but usually try to stick to those 3 “rules”:
- If you have the space, try to avoid placing your speakers (and hence your desk) too close to a wall. Try to be at the very least 2 feet from a wall. (This is obviously not always possible)
- Avoid placing your speakers in a corner. Low frequencies accumulate in corners and this will mess up your sound (if you want to know more about the subject here is an interesting article).
- Try to place your desk at one third of the length of the room and slightly off center. This is to avoid uniform reverberations.
PS: Yes the room on the image wouldn’t be optimal because of the non porous tiles and windows heavily reflecting sound (you should then invest in a carpet and heavy curtains).
With all this being said....
Do not forget that according to the speakers you use, those recommendations can vary. For example, some speakers are made to be against walls and with some others you can configure the low end to make up for their location in the room. This being said most commercial studio monitor speakers can be placed according to this logic.
Also, do not forget that the room in itself needs acoustic treatment such as acoustic panels, foam pads, bass traps and such.
Keeping all that in mind, if you follow those steps you should hear a clear improvement in the quality of the sound.
Have a good setup!
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