Form an Equilateral Triangle
Genelec says the angle between the left and right monitors must be 60°, with the listener at the tip of an equilateral triangle and each monitor aimed at the listening position. That means each monitor is turned in by 30°.
ADAM Audio gives a worked example: monitors 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) apart need the listening position 1.5 meters from each speaker, which puts your head about 1.3 meters from the line between them. ADAM also advises that monitor spacing, and your distance from them, shouldn't exceed about one third of the room's average length and width.
Put the Tweeters at Ear Height
The acoustic axis should meet your ears when you sit in the mixing position. Genelec puts it ideally at 1.2 to 1.4 meters from the floor. ADAM Audio warns that small monitors placed straight on a desk usually sit too low, so raise them on stands or angle them up toward your ears.
Genelec adds two limits:
- Don't lift the monitors so high that more than 15° of downward tilt is needed to aim them.
- Avoid placing the monitors at half the room's height, where the floor and ceiling can cause resonances at low frequencies.
Mind the Wall Behind the Monitors
A nearby wall reinforces bass. ADAM Audio says each wall closer than 0.5 meters (about 20 inches) adds 0 to 4 dB of bass, depending on how solid the wall is. Its advice is to place monitors either closer than 0.5 meters to the wall behind them (10 cm, about 4 inches, is a practical minimum) or farther than 1.5 meters away, to avoid reflections that color the low midrange.
Genelec's home studio guide says that without a subwoofer, the distance from the monitor front to the wall should typically be less than 60 cm (about 24 inches). It also advises keeping the listening position at least 1 meter (about 3.3 feet) from the walls and out of the exact center of the room.
Keep the Room Symmetrical
Genelec says accurate stereo imaging comes from keeping the left and right monitors the same distance from the nearest side walls and the wall behind them, at the same height, with the listening position on the room's left-right center line. ADAM Audio adds that the side walls should be as far away as possible and match on both sides, in distance and in what they are made of.
Avoid positions where a nearby side wall, the ceiling, or the floor reflects sound straight toward your seat. Genelec divides the room into front, center, and back thirds and places the setup in the front third.
Check Left, Right, and Wiring
Before you mix, play our speaker test. The Left/Right tab should play "Left" from the left monitor only and "Right" from the right only, with Play Both sounding from the middle. If the sides are swapped, swap the cables at the audio interface or swap the monitors. The Phase tab checks the wiring: sit centered and switch between In Phase and Out of Phase. In Phase should sound fuller, with a solid center. If Out of Phase sounds fuller, one monitor's + and − wires are swapped.
The test's sweep runs from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Listen for buzzing or rattles from the desk, the stands, or anything on them.
Set a Safe Listening Level
NIOSH sets its recommended exposure limit at 85 dBA averaged over an eight-hour workday, and halves the time for every 3 dBA above that. Long mixing sessions count toward the same total. To see the level you actually listen at, run our decibel meter on a phone held at your listening position while music plays. See how loud is too loud for safe times at higher levels.
The same meter helps match the two sides: play the speaker test's Left and then Right tone and compare the readings at your seat. If one side reads higher, turn its level control down until both match.
Choosing monitors first? Our studio monitors guide compares picks by size and budget, and the studio headphones guide covers a second reference for checking mixes.