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| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
Indeed! Congrats David. You've done a great job.
The only things I don't in those pics are the speakers flat mounted on the desk, the fact they are not in front of the chair/either side of the screen and that there's no rug on the floor behind your chair (but it doesn't look completely finished in fairness). |
So in the last few weeks received a couple of PM's asking to explain why not to flat mount your monitors. It may be old news and obvious to some but I thought I would post up the reasons as to why right here:
Firstly, you get what is commonly called "desk splash" which is where sound waves produced by the speaker driver hit the flat surface directly below the speaker and bounce up to the listener.
This creates a secondary relection of the original signal, which arrives slightly delayed to the listener and even colored as the frequencies react differently with the surface (some absorbed, some reflected). This reflection also can bounce off (again factor in frequency for variance) in a different direction and can blur the true stereo image. This means you won't hear the signal as a true representation of what it actually is, either in terms of clarity, frequency or stereo field.
Secondly, speakers, even on stands with a flat base let alone a flat surface like a desk, should always be de-coupled. To simplify, this is because there are various factors dictating speaker design and if a speaker enclosure is in full contact with another material it can influence the way the speakers essentially produce sound. The classic example is essentially vibrational feedback, where the speakers (mainly low) frequency is transferred to the stand or surface which in turn vibrates but some of this passes back to the speakers (due to vibrational dynamics - think rings in a pond when you throw a stone in).
By decoupling the speaker, you're allowing the speaker to behave as it really shoud regardless of the contact medium which can dampen or colour it's sound reproduction, so in essence the speaker has no outside forces apart from temperature and air density to affect it.
For increbly large speakers such as the PMC BM2 (about 80 pounds or 35 kilos each) which even have their own steel stands, we use "Blue Dots" or Sorbothane to decouple.
With smaller monitors, you can easily just use Auralex Mopads or upturned half squash balls (medium density) under the speakers.
So basically, at least decouple your speakers, if not use proper stands or mopads as a minimum to get the best reproduction from your speakers.
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