wavelength is around 28ft (8.5m). It is quite possible that at these wavelengths from a single
source/woofer both your ears could be in a phase hole. The room may be rattling and shaking,
but you would not hear the direct sound only its effect on the space. The opposite is also true.
The room and woofer interaction could generate a standing wave that would give up to 6dB of
build up at your ears. Thus great care should be taken in placement to find the best location
for the speaker. If possible two sub woofers of the same type should be placed asymmetrical-
ly in the control room. You should also take into account the construction of the walls, floor
and ceiling of the control room. . One way to hear how much you are losing is to play some
good full range program and walk outside the control room. With the door closed, how much
low frequency energy are you hearing leaking out? Is this desirable? Probably not, since it will
annoy co-workers and neighbors and is costing you power and headroom in your system!
Overall the best advice is to take care and time with your subwoofer placement and integration
to the room and main channels. Do not simply position the subwoofer without due thought
and be impressed with the sound and power. If you are setting up a monitoring system, it is
critical that the sub is placed and integrated correctly or your product – your mix will suffer. It
is suggested that three of four popular DVD’s are auditioned with and without a sub in the sys-
tem. You will find that often there are great differences in the amount of low frequency content
on the tracks. For best results, use a reference disc with a response sweep up to 800Hz.
Use with CRT displays.
The Diamond Pro and Pro Active reference monitors are magnetically shielded for use in close
proximity to CRT displays as are found in many of today’s production and dubbing systems so
placement next to CRT monitor displays are possible.
5.1 Monitoring
It is strongly recommended that for 5.1 Multi-channel monitoring, all 5 of the main channels
should be the same loudspeaker. Critically, the three main “screen channels” should be the
same, i.e. have the same sonic character and coverage. In a perfect world consumer 5.1
playback systems would also have the Left, Center, and Right channels all the same speaker.
It is important that professionals involved in source creation use the proper set-up and follow
recommended practices for speaker placement and balance. This way your product – the
recording, will playback properly on all types of replay system, both cinema, home theatre, car
and other.
Note: There are some variables found in these replay systems to be taken into account of in
the monitoring environment. There are also different practices used in the creation and mixing
of program materials. Stereo, 5.1, DVD-Audio etc can be quite different.
For home cinema and motion picture exhibition the monitor levels and balance can generally
be set-up with the Left, Center and Right “screen” channels having the same level. The Left
and Right Surrounds are generally considered to be best when their summed output equals
one of the screen channels. In other words, each of the surrounds is 3dB below any of the
screen channels. This can vary in the real world where often all 5 of the main screen and
surrounds are set at the same level.
Stereo Near Field Monitoring set-up:
Placement should be as much as possible for you and the two speakers to make the three
corners of an equilateral triangle. The typical distance your head will be from (plus or minus
reasonable movement back and forth) from the speaker position line, will dictate the width
through some simple math, or experimentation. This places the speakers at 60 degrees.
Vertical set-up should allow the speaker central axis to point at head height. The Diamond is a
well designed speaker that is relatively insensitive to the height of the listener. However, a
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