DJ setup speaker positioning

[Harryharryharry]

Hello!

I've just moved house and getting my office/music room setup.

The room is about 2.6m x 2.8m (decks currently on the 2.6m side. One of the 2.8m sides has french doors on.

I've currently got some Kef R3s, minidsp flex & topping PA5 and SVS Sb1000pro which is pretty killer, however:

- The kefs are large and heavy for a small room
- I've only got crappy tall stands for them
- Wall mounting would be tricky and probably not advised for them to be that close to the wall
- I like pointing the theaters at my ears when mixing (this means they're right on the corner which probably isn't ideal).
- I'm going to move the decks opposite my desk so I'd like them to also be flat to the wall for background music

Whilst I love the setup it seems suboptimal for this room.

Should I persevere and try for stands or wall mounting or consider a new setup?

I'm coming round to Genelecs especially with GLM, but they are very expensive. 8331s are around £3,500+ extras.

Anything else you'd recommend consider ideally on par or better performance?

 

[Harryharryharry]

See photo

 

[kipman725]

looking at your setup taller stands/wall mounts to get the tweeters to ear height would be a good idea, in your particular config I would recommend getting them as close into the walls/corners as possible. The frequency response in the low end of the R3s is going to be modified by the corner loading (excessive bass/mid-bass) but you can correct this with DSP EQ. You might also want to add some absorption to the front wall as the tweeters will have reflected sound from here.

There are a seemingly loads of on wall speaker options but I'm not sure which are any good and you will still need some kind of DSP capability to get the best results.

 

[Harryharryharry]

Thanks. Surprised by recommendation of getting the R3s close into the corners I had assumed the corners would cause them problems.

They're pretty much as far into the corners as possible already due to the width of the room.

Current stands are as high as they can go without the whole thing toppling over. And given I'm 6 ft 5 I think a stand to bring them to tweeter height is a bit unrealistic!

Will have another look at wall brackets.

 

[kipman725]

the closer you get them to the boundry the higher the frequency at which you start to get cancelation notches from that boundry. So the ideal case is actualy flush with the boundry as in a studio for the main monitors where they are mounted flush with the front wall. If you get the speaker close enough to the boundry this can be pushed above the frequency at which the baffle constrains the output of the speaker to the front of the speaker and avoid destrutive interferance from the boundry. However you will get more constructive interferance which alters the frequency response increasing bass sensitivity hence the need for EQ to reduce this bass gain.

 

[Harryharryharry]

the closer you get them to the boundry the higher the frequency at which you start to get cancelation notches from that boundry. So the ideal case is actualy flush with the boundry as in a studio for the main monitors where they are mounted flush with the front wall. If you get the speaker close enough to the boundry this can be pushed above the frequency at which the baffle constrains the output of the speaker to the front of the speaker and avoid destrutive interferance from the boundry. However you will get more constructive interferance which alters the frequency response increasing bass sensitivity hence the need for EQ to reduce this bass gain.

The boundary being the wall the speakers are placed near not the corner right?

 

[Harryharryharry]

I think I'm coming to the realisation that the R3s are too big and heavy to get into the right position for this small room.

I've been looking at some Genelecs but it's not of a mind field all the model numbers! Something with GLM for sure.

 

[sarumbear]

Hello!

I've just moved house and getting my office/music room setup.

The room is about 2.6m x 2.8m (decks currently on the 2.6m side. One of the 2.8m sides has french doors on.

I've currently got some Kef R3s, minidsp flex & topping PA5 and SVS Sb1000pro which is pretty killer, however:

- The kefs are large and heavy for a small room
- I've only got crappy tall stands for them
- Wall mounting would be tricky and probably not advised for them to be that close to the wall
- I like pointing the theaters at my ears when mixing (this means they're right on the corner which probably isn't ideal).
- I'm going to move the decks opposite my desk so I'd like them to also be flat to the wall for background music

Whilst I love the setup it seems suboptimal for this room.

Should I persevere and try for stands or wall mounting or consider a new setup?

I'm coming round to Genelecs especially with GLM, but they are very expensive. 8331s are around £3,500+ extras.

Anything else you'd recommend consider ideally on par or better performance?

Do you use the word DJ as a club DJ? Is so, aiming for a stereo system where the listener at the top of a triangle is maybe not a good choice.

My partner was an international club DJ. I built a room for him in our previous house, which was pretty dead and had multiple speakers above head height surrounding the mixer location, and multiple PA (not HT) subwoofers.

 

[Harryharryharry]

Club DJ yes but only as an amateur / hobby.

Is the reason so reflect club sound more realistically?

It can be a harder transition when you get to the club and your behind a big stack lots of reflections etc.

How many speakers and in what positions did you go with @sarumbear ?

 

[sarumbear]

Is the reason so reflect club sound more realistically?

Yes.

How many speakers and in what positions did you go with @sarumbear ?

I used 4x JBL 4309 hung from the ceiling and a JBL Synthesis SSW-2 on the floor — which I kept and still use it as the LFE speaker of my HT. they were driven by a JBL Synthesis SDA-4600 amplifier (4x 600W) through a DBX 223XS active crossover set at 100Hz. Mixer was a Pioneer DJM.

 

[Harryharryharry]

Thats a hell of a home setup!

 

[sarumbear]

Thats a hell of a home setup!

That was one of the setups. It was a club emulator. We had not used that room to listen to music but to experience it.

 

[Matthias McCready]

For imaging, Texas headphones wouldn't be my first choice, granted I am not a DJ. For mixing I far prefer a good near field setup and positioned correctly.

Wall mounts are an option. If you want stands, Sound Anchor makes a quality product, however they are not inexpensive.

Also you definitely need a Meyer Sound VLFC

 

[kipman725]

The boundary being the wall the speakers are placed near not the corner right?

Both walls are boundaries. This guide covers the issues and need for EQ when positioning speakers next to walls or in corners: https://www.genelec.com/monitor-placement

In terms of getting a 'club' sound there are several deviations from the normal HIFI setup:
1) Greater sub-woofer capability, for a small room at least 2*15" ported subs with long excursion drivers and powerful amps. This is required due to the substantial LF boost in the system equalization.
2) a house curve with much greater LF tilt than the Harmen curve that lots of people use for Hifi. I would recomend in REW adding onto the Harmen a 2dB/octave LF boost starting at 150Hz and a 0.5dB downwards tilt starting at 1kHz. You may also want to notch out the ear canal resonance around 2.56khz but this is SPL dependent. You may also want to add boosts around 80-100Hz to excite chest cavity resonances. In a club situation I will be running the FOH and booth through a digital mixing desk and often re-equalizing on a track by track basis, this can be a lot of work if the source material is not well mastered or the tracks are lossy compressed.
3) The HF needs to be coming from a compression driver not a dome tweeter, they sound very different. I am not sure if its non ideal behavior from compression drivers but snares and other sharp sounds are more sharp.

Texas headphones is the standard club setup even if its a bit weird. In small clubs usualy the booth monitors have no subwoofer system and the sub is coming from FOH. Your basicly in small room acoustics so there would not be a great advantage to having on stage subwoofers as long as the booth monitors are reasonably large so can get down to 60-80Hz.

 

[Matthias McCready]

To add to what was said above:

For live music some genres, such as, EDM or Hip-Hop often have "haystacked" subs that are 18-30dB hotter than tops I won't say whether this is right or wrong, just that is common. Most systems in those domain are not flat.

If you do haystack your subs (ie they have some additional dB level great than your tops), keep in mind that subwoofers have two crossovers.

1) The Filter Crossover (Set on the amp, or in the DSP)
2) The Acoustical Crossover (Determined by the level offset between subs and tops).

For example the crossover may be set at 60Hz, however if your subs are much louder, that is going to move up the frequency to which they have relative custody of the signal. An 18dB+ level difference could mean an actual crossover frequency of around 115Hz, rather than the 60Hz in the DSP.

Before a system is tuned, it is important to know how your subs will be run.

The HF needs to be coming from a compression driver not a dome tweeter, they sound very different. I am not sure if its non ideal behavior from compression drivers but snares and other sharp sounds are more sharp.

I would disagree on this point.

I think that has more to do with the quality of the compression driver, rather than them sounding different by their inherent nature. Most PA speakers are meant to go loud, rather than sound good; in fact sound quality can sadly be the 10th deciding factor in why a PA speaker is chosen, as I posted here.

That being said there are some incredibly nice sounding manufacturers out there, that I would be happy to put in my living room. The vast majority of PA brands and their respective product lines, however absolutely do not sound that good.

In my mind how a driver is implemented is much more important than the driver material, type of driver, or proprietary magic sauce used in the box.

 

[sarumbear]

For live music some genres, such as, EDM or Hip-Hop often have "haystacked" subs that are 18-30dB hotter than tops I won't say whether this is right or wrong, just that is common. Most systems in those domain are not flat.

I agree on general that FR is tilted towards the bass but I think your values are way off chart. 30dB SPL is a stupendous difference! Also, you are talking about a sharp shelf not a tilt. I have never been to a club where they use or heard about such a level mismatch that is done intentionally, and I have been to a few, my partner was an international DJ. I was also a consultant on various high-profile clubs in London.

If you do haystack your subs (ie they have some additional dB level great than your tops), keep in mind that subwoofers have two crossovers.

1) The Filter Crossover (Set on the amp, or in the DSP)
2) The Acoustical Crossover (Determined by the level offset between subs and tops).

For example the crossover may be set at 60Hz, however if your subs are much louder, that is going to move up the frequency to which they have relative custody of the signal. An 18dB+ level difference could mean an actual crossover frequency of around 115Hz, rather than the 60Hz in the DSP.

It depends on the LP filter slope though. One can use a higher order filter.

However, why worried about the mismatch at the crossover point when you are creating a huge level mismatch intentionally???

 

[kipman725]

it depends on the processing whether you need a mismatch in main and sub level. If the processor is fixed point its required for internal headroom reasons, if the processor lacks sufficient boost its also needed. Too high acoustic crossover is a very typical problem in club systems. I can share some club frequency responses later. Having access to a quickly adjustable parameteric EQ is very useful for mixed use systems.

 

[Matthias McCready]

I agree on general that FR is tilted towards the bass but I think your values are way off chart. 30dB SPL is a stupendous difference! Also, you are talking about a sharp shelf not a tilt. I have never been to a club where they use or heard about such a level mismatch that is done intentionally, and I have been to a few, my partner was an international DJ. I was also a consultant on various high-profile clubs in London.


It depends on the LP filter slope though. One can use a higher order filter.

However, why worried about the mismatch at the crossover point when you are creating a huge level mismatch intentionally???

It is a large difference, yes, and one that is common with subwoofer deployment and arrays for live-music/festivals.

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The following image is from a subwoofer deployment workshop taught by Merlijn van Veen that I was able to attend several years back.

Again this is heavily dependent on the genre, but at the point that it is a genre where the bass, "is being felt," there is likely some sort of tilt. For some genres that may only be 6-12dB. For bass heavy genres it is often 18dB+ though.

Also this is not a value that is being set up with filters or in the DSP, but simply by sub to main ratio, ie something that would be seen with a measurement mic. I am talking acoustical gain.

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I am FOH engineer by trade and the main venue I mix at has a compliment of 8x L'Acoustics KS28's, which is a potent amount of subs.

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Personally I lean more towards flat, however many mix engineers (or their management) prefer a large LF haystack; when it comes to tuning and deployment it is then the system engineers job to take their wish and make it happen (whether or not it gives them warm and fuzzy feelings). If this accounting for is done on the front end, then it will have nice hand-off to the mains.

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This is fairly off-topic to the OP at this point; my main point there was I was presuming there would be some sort of bump from the subs, and if so to take extra care to make sure that the hand-off is nice.

 

[sarumbear]

It is a large difference, yes, and one that is common with subwoofer deployment and arrays for live-music/festivals.

The subject is a setup for a DJ, who normally perform in a club, an enclosed space. Live music or a festival is held at an open space. I don’t how you can compare the setups, specially as the OP explained his room.

 

[abdo123]

looking at your setup taller stands/wall mounts to get the tweeters to ear height would be a good idea.

it's a point source coaxial so it's not a big deal.