Dynaudio monitors upside down....?

[golemus]

Is it a bad idea to use monitors upside down? I have Dynaudio BM-6A. My current room is a basic row house room, pretty small, height 220cm, wooden roof, floor is clinker (kind of stone I suppose), and walls are some hollow stuff (plywood?) except one wall seems to be concrete.

Currently my monitors are positioned totally wrong but I intend to buy stands and put them to optimal position.
So the halfway of the room from floor to roof is 110cm and my ears are in abt. 120cm (125 if I sit very straight). In BM-6A distance between tweeter and middle of bass cone is abt. 14cm so if I position tweeter to my ears height the bass cone will be almost in the middle height which should be avoided for bass frequency standing waves (or so I have understood). The width and depth of the room are about 3.20m almost equal but a small difference.

I have no reflection preventing material and no other acoustic treatment and it is unlikely that I will have any in the near future. I do have a high sofa behind so it absorbs a lot of potential reflections from the back wall.

How would you position the speakers in such conditions? Is it a stupid idea to put the monitors upside down so that tweeters are at my ears height? it would move bass cones about 25cm away from the middle point.

Of course this is a temporary solution I intend to get a decent studio but I have to mix quite many tunes still in this environment.

[Uncle E]

It should be fine, just try them both ways and stick with whichever way sounds more realistic to you. I've got them set up completely wrong (they're in a tracking room, not a mixing room) and yet they still sound amazing.

[golemus]

It should be fine, just try them both ways and stick with whichever way sounds more realistic to you. I've got them set up completely wrong (they're in a tracking room, not a mixing room) and yet they still sound amazing.

Could monitors get damaged from being used upside down? It would seem absurd but I still need some other opinions because they are very expensive.

[Uncle E]

Could monitors get damaged from being used upside down?

No.

[Shy]

Like Uncle E said, it doesn't matter. I also tried them upside down and on the side (how they are currently), sounds just as perfect either way.

[golemus]

Like Uncle E said, it doesn't matter. I also tried them upside down and on the side (how they are currently), sounds just as perfect either way.

Soundonsound claims that the monitors should not be sideways, although I see in many pictures studios doing that:

"First of all, the monitors should usually be used the 'right way up', because lying them on their sides will compromise the stereo image significantly."

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb06/a ... diosos.htm

[Uncle E]

"First of all, the monitors should usually be used the 'right way up', because lying them on their sides will compromise the stereo image significantly."

Upside down won't have any effect on the stereo image but sideways could theoretically. Shy and I are two examples (among many) of people who abuse this with little ramification.

[Shy]

Don't listen to a magazine and "theories". Dynaudio Acoustics say it's perfectly fine to place them on the side, and they're right.

[egbert]

If you have significant reflections happening from walls, floor and ceiling you will get bass standing waves arising no matter where the drivers are located. Sound is traveling at 340 m/sec and if (hypothetically) you have a single surface closeby to deal with you get a standing wave with a node at 1/4 wavelength and a maximum at 1/2 wavelength. If you put your bass driver right on that maximum (1/2 wavelength) you are pumping that frequency most efficiently I guess.

When you're in a typical box shaped room with six reflective surfaces all the reflections sum and interact of course.

A 2.2 metre ceiling is pretty low though. Playing instruments in tight spaces like that with hard walls gives a very reverberant sound - nice for hearing yourself on acoustic guitars but the boxiness is pretty noxious for recording quality. If you monitor in the same conditions you will get the same "processing" on your monitor sound. I guess we all make the best of whatever situation we have but some improvised room treatment would probably help a lot. The sofa is a good start - works as a bass trap and an absorber of high end reflections.

[Hink]

"First of all, the monitors should usually be used the 'right way up', because lying them on their sides will compromise the stereo image significantly."

Upside down won't have any effect on the stereo image but sideways could theoretically. Shy and I are two examples (among many) of people who abuse this with little ramification.

I'm a strong believer in not having monitors on their sides, when I worked MARs we actually did a lot of tests like this in the studio. The problem is not the stereo imaging at all, it's the fact then when a speaker is upright (or upside down) the balance between the drivers/tweeters is fairly constant and only changes when ones head is moved vertically. This is key to finding the sweet spot which is probably overstating the obvious.

OTOH, if you put the speakers on their sides instead of what becomes a fairly fixed vertical position maintaining the tonal balance between the drivers and tweeters (ports too of course) becomes easily thrown out of balance simply by turning one's head just a little which makes the sweet spot micro-scopic and very hard to maintain while reaching and such.

A lot of people will have large monitors upright or a pair in the corners of the room while having near fields on their sides on top of their desk, I can get this concept a little because it gives you the second perspective. TBH I never liked Yamaha NS-10s until I heard them on their sides and they actually sounded better and I have come to notice over the decade plus that often when I see monitors on their sides they are indeed NS-10s

The upside down concept makes me go why didn't I think of that?...cool idea, I will have to give it a shot...thanx

edit: btw for the record, when monitors are on their sides the sound when I move my head a little is like an ear blocking a little. That's my problem with monitors on their sides

[Shy]

It depends on the monitors. I know what you're talking about and it's not true for BM6A in my experience.

[Hink]

It depends on the monitors. I know what you're talking about and it's not true for BM6A in my experience.

I have no experience with those but I do remember at least one company claiming they had monitors that could be used either way so I can see that. I have had my monitors for many years now.

[ouroboros]

my 2p -
I agree, place them however you like. i will say though that when I had mine on the sides my stereo image widened and got a bit wonky on me. But my desk had them placed right up next to my head, and moved the tweeters out. It wasn't enough to mess up a mix or anything, but it sounded different when I returned them upright. I think the closer to your speakers, like headphones, the more difference it makes.

[Arksun]

Like Uncle E said, it doesn't matter. I also tried them upside down and on the side (how they are currently), sounds just as perfect either way.

Soundonsound claims that the monitors should not be sideways, although I see in many pictures studios doing that:

You often see a picture of a big studio control room which has the nearfields sitting on their side on the meter bridge of a large console. The reason for this being so that they don't get in the way of the line of fire of the mainfield large monitors behind them/mounted into the wall.

Unfortunately because of this a lot of amatuers looked at these pictures and took it to mean they should use their only pair of monitors, their 2-way nearfields in much the same manner.

Most 2 ways are designed to be used upright and should be used upright (normal or upside down if this helps with tweeter to ear height in your particular setup). The main advantage of this way is that the relative time alignment between each speakers tweeter and woofer stays the same, as you're far more likely to move your head from side to side rather than up and down in the chair.

With the 2-ways positioned on their side, you'll get not only the phase shift between the speakers, but a shift in phase between each speakers woofer and tweeter, giving a less accurate phase response overall.

The greater the distance they are away the smaller the relative shift, but using 2-way nearfields up close, say 1m, you really should have them upright to get a more accurate sound.

3-ways are a different matter, some are designed to be horizontal, others vertical, but usually should be used a minimum 1.5m away imho. Check the manual and see what it says regarding usage, as well as its suggested acoustical axis point (the point of greatest sound coherency where the ears should be level with, which isn't always dead on the tweeter, sometimes its a little in between the drivers).