Desk Speaker Placement: How Bad Is a 75° Listening Angle for Near-/midfield Hi-Fi?

[CharmanderHifi]

Hi all,

I’m currently redesigning my desk setup. Likely going from 2 screens landscape (27” + 24”) towards 32” + 27” portrait). Currently I have Edifier S350DB 2.1 and the speakers fit under the monitors so it was a good listening triangle, but not the best speakers. With the new monitor setup the speakers will not fit under. I’m also likely upgrading to Buchardt A10’s which are also a lot larger .

As aresult the speakers need to be wider, ruining the equilateral triangle… The TO BE setup would be like diagram below. For now ignore the visual perception that the screen will be in front of the speaker, I can put them a bit backwards so that’s really not the case.

So question 1: How badly will sub optimal listening angles impact my listening experience? We’re talking about minimum 75°, maybe slightly upwards. What exactly will deteriorate?

I’ve also never had a “perfect setup”. I DO remember being at an audioshop listening to klipsch heresy iv in a perfect setup and it sounded like I was in a sound bubble… It was magical.

Question 2: is the above something that can even be achieved near/mid field with speakers on a desk?

Plan B is to get a 32”, 34” or 39” centre monitor and jsut put 2 15” monitors under. And then no larger screen to the side. But the other monitor setup is really what I prefer. That would solve speaker placement. I only wanna go this route if listening experience is ruined too much under question 1. Else it doesn’t make sense to buy super premium speakers. Another option ofc is not sitting dead centre on the 32” screen, just sitting at the 1/3 point will already significantly improve the listening angle, but that’s not a compromise I want to make. (see EDIT: The 39” monitor apparently is not a good solution ;-; )

Question 3: Any other speaker recommendations..? I’ve considered buchardt A10, Neumann KH 150 and Genelc 8341A (the last two perhaps being “too” neutral/sterile. As the main use case is enjoying music and gaming - not doing music production (not even a use case).

Thanks in advance!

EDIT - Actually using the 39” apparently isn’t even “a good” solution… Just shift the triangle backwards, I could put the point of my head back far enough so I just “moved” it forwards a bit. This also generates a 70° angle.

[Dzaw]

Ok - so I’m no expert, but I’ve been playing with speaker placement a lot, and am in a very similar near/midfield space - a large, extended desktop essentially. In such an environment, I would wager that having that right speaker crammed into the corner like that, and the left speaker against the wall, but not symmetrically in a corner will have a much bigger impact on that magical “in a bubble” stage you were referencing than a 10-15 degree opening of the listening angle. While 60 degrees is a great starting point, a little wider or a little narrower can often be a better ending point, depending on factors like your room setup, loudspeaker model, and presence/absence/placement of subwoofer(s). Every speaker placement deep dive I’ve read tells me to start with the equilateral triangle, but by no means consider that “optimal” or even “final” - play with your speaker placement, and also play with the toe-in.

In short, don’t sweat this difference if there’s nothing f you can n do about it, a well put together system will still sound fantastic, especially if you put some effort into optimizing what you CAN do stuff about.

For example, can you lift the speakers off the desk? Even several inches can help move those first reflections off your direct ear path. Can you get the tweeters at about ear-height? That would do wonders for your Nearfield image. Can you get them off the wall? Again, any distance you can put behind them, even a few inches can help.

For the love of all that sounds musical - put SOME sort of treatment on the wall behind them- a 2” thick rock wool filled box covered in cloth will do SO MUCH MORE for your sound than the difference between 60 or 75 degrees!

In my own setup, similar in scale, I found that wall mounted speaker stands gave me the flexibility to put my speakers at the right height for tweeters to be on-axis for my listening plane, got the speakers up off the desk, and bought me nearly a foot of distance behind the speaker cabinets (nearly 2’ behind the baffles). Maybe similar wall mount stands would help you out? Also, an under-desk keyboard and mouse drawer REALLY helped by moving my sitting position back more than a foot, helping the stereo angle as well as giving my speakers some breathing room.

Of the speakers you mentioned, I would take the genelecs and never look back. Those coaxial drivers will act like a point source for your stereo image, really helping reinforce that magical bubble effect, especially impactful in the Nearfield, as at this distance the angle from tweeter to woofer can be more detectable. If they end up sounding too “clinical” a so-called “program EQ” like a Pultec type (check out a mercury P1, for example) or even just a schiit Lokius can help gently “sculpt” a musical and pleasing overall signature, taming the harsher or analytical elements - and this is the important part - without otherwise degrading the detail and quality of the output!

Finally - you needs you a decent sub. I’m serious. If you can relieve your mains of the bottom octave of their range by high passing 80Hz+ to the mains, you buy yourself a lot of flexibility and forgiveness for speaker placement - flabby, bloated bass response is often (not universally, but commonly) the problem with sub optimal speaker placement. Giving those frequencies to a sub that you can place elsewhere goes a long way.