[LAU] Arranging furniture in a room

[Jörn Nettingsmeier]

On 10/18/2010 07:30 PM, Julien Claassen wrote:
> Hello all! I have the opportuinty to move all the furniture in my
> room, since it's being redecoarted. Now I wonder, if some of you
> might have tipps for an audiophile distribution of my room. :-)

i found you generally want to keep things symmetrical along the stereo
center line. so a window to the left and a bookshelf to the right is a
bad idea (you will misjudge balance and source placement easily).

also, don't put your listening position in a place where similar room 
nodes occur in the 3 directions (in the centre of an exactly cubic room 
would be a very extreme example of bad placement). shoebox-type rooms 
are easiest to deal with (different length, height and width, so 
different standing wave frequencies, so problem frequencies tend to be 
smoothed out).

i usually try to avoid extreme rear reflections if i can, but i must 
confess i don't really know why, and fons' suggestion to move to a rear 
wall got me thinking...

and of course it pays to think about early reflections that are so close 
to the direct sound that they will incur audible coloration. here's a 
fun way to deal with this problem, and with this method, you wouldn't 
even need the help of a sighted person (as you probably would if you 
measured with a laser or tape).

from: http://www.sweetwater.com/NearField/#console
> Take the microphone stand and place it at the mix position. Attach
> one end of the string to the top of the mic stand, and stretch the
> string out to the front of one of the monitors. This is the direct
> sound path from the speaker to your mix position. To locate all the
> surfaces that will contribute reflections within that magic 2
> millisecond window, add 600mm(24") to the string you have stretched
> out. Take a small piece of gaff tape and attach the string to the
> baffle (NOT the drivers!). Now, every surface you can touch with any
> part of that string can contribute a reflection to your mix position.

bookshelves are great diffusors with pretty high absorption. bass-eating 
furniture such as beds or sofas work best in corners of the room, if you 
find you need to slim down the sound a bit.
sometimes, if your room is just a tad boomy, removing absorbing surfaces 
can work just as well as adding bass traps, and is often easier.

monitor speakers should be arranged so that the drivers are above one 
another, so that you stay in the same lobe when you move horizontally at 
your mixer.


hth,

jörn