So I decided to splurge and replace the crap computer speakers I’ve been using for a while now with some truly kick ass monitors – the Focal Alpha 65s. Just spent two hours in front of a wall of monitors at B&H here in NYC and these things blew away everything – Rokits, Yamaha, JBL, Behringers, even the Adam I heard. Really happy to get them set up.
The only thing I’ve been told is that having speakers that can push the kind of sound the 65s can, I need to “set up” my room to handle them or else it’ll turn into a boomy mess. This is my bedroom. It isn’t particularly big (Manhattan living), and I don’t have the luxury of being able to put them a good distance back and away from me like they would be in a studio monitoring situation. They’ll be close to me, on stands. My room is in an old building, with mostly bare walls and two windows. Hardwood floors.
I don’t have the speakers here yet – they have to ship them to me – but just to get ahead of any potential problems, do any of you familiar with acoustics and sound / space stuff foresee an issue here? I can’t imagine I’ll bump the hell out of them very often – they get really loud and I do have neighbors. Is this something I really need to be aware of, or have I just been reading too many audiophile studio monitoring forums?
There are a lot of factors that would result in a boomy sounding room. Acoustic treatment will help a lot but if you aren’t trying to do a mix down for music production or audio editing than it might be overkill to spend a lot of money in this department.
The simplest thing you can do (that’s free) is not set up your speakers in or near corners of your room as that is where the bass will be building up. Be aware of the direction your speakers will be “firing”, whether it be down the narrow way of your room or the shallow way (assuming your room is rectangular and not square). The reasoning for this is the sound will bounce off the first reflection point of the walls and into your ears which will result in a non-defined sound. You will have to try both ways to see what works for you. Also keep in mind that the furniture within your room will also make a difference in how the sound will be absorbed and reflected around your bedroom.
In terms of your neighbors, acoustic treatment will really only help aid in what you’re hearing more so than sound proofing your room so your neighbors won’t hear when you’re jamming.
The only thing I have is isolating foam things for the speakers. Otherwise, unless you’re running a business mastering music, general furniture and curtains will help reduce reverb.
