Is there any accepted wisdom on what constitutes near field listening vs a ‘normal’ listening distance? I ask as I’m going to redo my office and think it may have the right amount of space to use as a semi-primary listening room.
It’s only 4.5m x 4.5, so not a lot of ‘air’ between speakers and listening position. Do I treat this as a quali-nearfield listening environment with a specific setup or can this be set up in a relatively straightforward manner?
Room is square, carpeted, and the front and back walls are straight & clean - no doors or windows messing with placement. But I will need to navigate the rest of my office furniture (desk, bookcase, shelves, etc.)
Wondering if anyone has some best practices or tips to make this work? I just don’t want to get blasted out the back wall a la the Memorex guy
I’m not aware of a definition in relation to hifi, but an important factor is that the effects of the room are reduced by the distance from speakers to listener being small relative to the room. I considered that sitting some 2.2m from plane of speaker front baffles, speakers about 2.7m apart, in a room 7m x7.5m was nearfield. In the room 4.5m square (not a small room by any means, but awkward being square, you mention I would think certainly t under 2m between speakers, maybe down to 1.5m - probably challenging to do much less than 1.5m unless small speakers of course in which case nearly unlimited smallness!
The only thing I would suggest is to perhaps take a bit of care with rooms that are very close to a perfect square layout. It is similar to what I have, although mine is 4.6m by 4.12m by 2.39m high.
I think @feeling_zen may have some expert knowledge here as well. IIRC layout of speakers firing along the diagonal of the square can work well in such rooms. It did in my other similarly sized almost square room, but that arrangement was not easily achieved in the dedicated room I have now.
It depends on your speakers … but I would expect near field is between 1 and 1.5 m from the plane of the speakers.
If your profile is correct AI suggests:
Speaker separation
1.8–2.2 m
Centre to centre
Listening distance
1.5–2 m
From each speaker
These are suggested starting dimensions, not a hard acoustic boundary. The speakers should ideally form an approximately equilateral triangle with your listening position.
What this means in practice
Around 1 m: Very close listening, with strong direct sound and potentially excellent detail. The stereo image may feel wider than the distance suggests.
Around 1.5 m: A good near-field starting point for the LS50 Meta, with a coherent stereo image.
Around 2 m: Still a relatively close listening arrangement, and likely to give a more spacious presentation if the room and speaker placement allow it
It’s called the Critical Distance; the point at which the output from your speakers and your room’s contribution, are equal. Inside of this distance, and what you hear will be dominated by the speaker’s output and I think that is a minimum benchmark for being considered “near field” sound.
So I’ve moved some furniture around and re-measured. It is not square as I initially believed, but rectangular - and I’l setting up with the long walls back and front. So there’s only about 4m wall to wall.
But when I sit on the sofa aligned to the back wall, it feels like there’s enough room to breathe. My head is against the back wall but can maybe make that work.
Think the magic move will be to find a pair of speakers not too big and not too small for this space - but looking promising
In the imperial study we have Keilidhs either side of the desk, about half way down each side. They sound exceptional at low to medium levels when sitting at the keyboard. The treble unit is sufficiently high almost to clear the top.
I always listen nearfield with my Falcon Ls3s.
Just measured and it is a 1.5 mtr triangle. Straight facing,no toe in.
I only listen to small jazz groupings or solo piano. I like to be in with the band or sitting on the piano stool.
Orchestral music might cause a rethink both of positioning and speakers.
Do I listen nearfield? The room I use is 5.9m long, 2.7m wide and I listen across the narrow part of the room to a pair of Neat Petites. I am 1.85m away from them and they are 1.44m apart tweeter to tweeter, 1.23m between speakers.
Seems good to me - could they a tad further apart? And being smaller 'speakers, they may benefit from rear wall reinforcement as regards the bass. A rule of thumb seems to be split the side distances in to 1/3rds (i.e. 'speakers equidistant side walls), with a listening position at =/>1.1:1 of the gap between. But, the reality is, what with domestic compromises and room formats, experimentation is the only solution.
Of course, think about what’s on the wall behind you, as rear reflections can complicate things. Also, whether you sit back in a (say) high-ish-backed chair or slightly forward? Just don’t go below 1:1, as that can open a gap in whatever soundstage you get.
As I said in a previous post, that is not a small room, and whilst there may be practical physical limirs e.g. I’d hesitate to put Tannoy Westminster Royals in there), i don’t think theat size room would prevent use of full range floorstanders, subject to judicious positioning, firnishing and if necessary acoustic treatment. However, if your measurements were wrong we don’t actually know the size of the room…
Personally I wouln’t want to sit very close to the rear wall unless it had a substantial acoustic absorber behind me. My preferred distance if I can achieve it, at least for start of optimisation, is about 0.38x front-back room length from either the front wall or the rear wall (for 4.5m that would be 1.7m from either front or back wall). Lends itself well to nearfield listening if room isn’t large!
As someone who cannot get on with headphones and has always preferred sitting further from speakers, or live artists than the tradititional equilateral triangle, I decide to do an online search “nearfield studio monitor”.
Looking at some of the images, many show a pair of shoebox speakers wider apart than they are far away, in a couple of cases, a curved mixing desk, the chair almost seems to be between them.
Even larger speakers, labelled “farfield” seem far closer than I would want to sit.
I guess personal choice and circumstances very much play a part.
indeed they were a bit off - 3.6m x 3m. the 3.6m walls are the front and back.
when sitting facing the front wall, the right side has a door in line with the with the seating position and closet doors on the rest of the wall. the left side has windows and the radiator smack in the middle. but front & back walls are completely clean
If you want to experiment a bit, I find the online tool AMROC really useful. It has taken me less that 6mins to see and read your post and create the picture below.
PS: I took the liberty of entering your room dimensions (estimating height at 2.4m) and have not entered your listening position, so you could have a play with that if you want.
Here is the screenshot of the tool in operation for your room dimensions.
