Now, if you were to follow the all too common practice of lying your two way monitors on their side to give you better sight lines over your meter bridge, you can see (and hear) what will happen. With the monitor on its side, moving your head horizontally means you are now moving through all those rays, or lobes, where the wavefronts from the woofers and tweeters interfere with each other. The midrange frequency response will be different for each head position. All two way component monitors, no matter who manufactures them, need to be used with the multi-driver axis vertical (that’s just the way it has to be when you’re in the near-field). And if you’re wondering how three-way near-fields work with a whole bunch of speakers stuck all over the baffle, well... you’ll quickly realise why we stopped at two way speaker systems.
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6.2: POSITIONING (R6D & R8D)
This is the monitor equivalent of a wheel alignment. Where do you aim the speakers to give you the smoothest and most consistent sound, and how far apart do you place them to give you a good stereo image? The basic rule is to follow the layout of an equilateral triangle. The distance between the two monitors should be roughly the same as the distance between one monitor and your nose in the listening position where you are leaning forward on the console armrest. See the following diagram.
The speaker axis (shown on the diagram) should be aimed at the halfway point between your furthest forward and the furthest back listening positions (as indicated by the two heads on the diagram). This is typically a range of about 24" (600mm). If you can, you should line your ears up with the vertical speaker axis (half way between the woofer and the tweeter). Remember the earlier drawings showing your ears and the speaker, these were to get your normal listening position lined up in the best spot possible. If this would have you resting your chin on the console, you could tilt the monitor back slightly. This keeps your head in the sweet spot whether you’re leaning forward adjusting level or EQ, or leaning back and listening to the mix. Don’t go crazy trying to get this exact to three decimal places, within a few inches will suffice. Your Tannoy monitors have a wide sweet spot both horizontally and vertically to reduce the variations in sound quality as you move around doing your recording engineer stuff. Turning the monitors in like this has an added benefit of keeping the high frequencies from reflecting off the walls and outboard gear.
6.3: POSITIONING (R66D)
In order to ensure a uniform acoustical environment, the room should be symmetrical about the centre loudspeaker axis; room treatments should be applied symmetrically throughout the room. Mixed "Live end/Dead end" environments should be avoided. If the lateral speakers are positioned close to walls then the constitution of the wall surfaces should be identical.
As the main effects speaker for the front soundstage, the Reveal 66D’s placement is a critical factor in its performance. In all cases the centre channel speaker should be placed as close to the TV screen as possible. The Reveal 66D is fully magnetically shielded, permitting use in close proximity to TV monitors without colour-fringing effects.The viewing position when seated determines the ideal mounting height, but in all cases this should be as close as possible to ear height, if this is not possible the monitor should be tilted towards ear height in the mix position. The centre speaker should be positioned along the centre axis of the picture and the left/right monitors just outside the picture, ideally the three front effects speakers would be placed with the front baffles in line with the screen surface. If an acoustically transparent screen is used, the left/right monitors should be placed just inside the edges of the picture. The surround speakers should be positioned at the same distance to the mix position as the main front speakers. As the subwoofer/LFE channel only produces low frequencies it is difficult to localise its position by ear. As a result it could effectively be situated anywhere in the room, though optimum performance will be gained by placing the subwoofer in the same plane as the main front speakers.
4.4: SPEAKER MOUNTING
You’ve probably got your monitors delicately balanced on your console meter bridge, or sitting on a counter top beside your hard disc editor. Find some music with some real solid low end that you know well. Try listening to this music with the speaker sitting directly on the mounting surface and then with it sitting on a thin piece of rubber pad. Hear a difference? Which one sounds more like the recording should? Does one get tubby, or muddy? Depending on the type of mounting surface, you may find it beneficial to use a thin layer of flexible material (i.e. Bluetack) beneath the enclosure. This not only absorbs some vibration, but will help prevent the monitor from vibrating off of its mounting surface.
4.5: BASS PORTS
All Reveal monitor bass ports are located on the back panel. You should keep the back panels at least 150mm (6") away from the nearest wall surface to avoid an overblown bass sound. If you cannot avoid being close to the wall or if you’re using a separate subwoofer, you may want to consider plugging the port tubes on your near-fields with a closed cell foam-rubber plug, friction fit for a full seal. Because the ports aren’t needed if the monitor speakers are being used with a high pass filter, you won’t be losing any bass performance and you can improve the mid-bass response by plugging the ports.
