Greetings...I am near completing my home studio, and have a questions about the monitors ....the main mixing/computing "desk" I am using is 6 and 1/2 feet across, and the monitors are small Philips 2-way monitors, with 5" woofers....
How far apart and how high should I mount them ??
Thanx much,
Stacey S

As a rule of thumb your monitors should be at ear height and the same distance apart as each is to your ears. An equal side triangle. Apart from that, your listening position should be about 1/3 of the room length from the near wall. If your room is rectangular, you should be set up so your speakers throw the long way in the room not across the short length. Keep your monitors out of the corners.

So many variables....... Be sure your room has appropriate acoustic treatments and you should be golden. Don't be afraid to experiment with placement of you monitors before you commit to anything. Varying the length of the triangle's "sides" can be fruitful if you find the sweet spot in the room.

1/3 of the room length might be ideal if you can afford to use that much room area for the mixing console. MY mixing console is on a small desk against the wall with my Rokit 5's on each side pointing toward my ears. I'm facing the wall when operating my Korg D3200 studio recorder. The rest of the room is dedicated to musical equipment, computers, and walk space that is used for equipment setup during a session.

I know that I would be better off sitting against the wall with the console rear facing the musicians, but usually I'm one of the musicians. I just click and record, then turn around, listen, and mix. I usually use my Sony 7506 headphones to get close and then use the Rokits to fine tune. It works well and I get tight bass, good positional imaging, and pleasing sound where ever I play the master. Everyone has there own method. I agree that monitors need some air space, but near field monitors work well in close, tight environments. 5" monitors are well suited to near field use. If you have large studio monitors, I agree that they need to be away from the wall in free air to prevent low freq coupling to the sheetrock. Lots of pro studios have large monitors mounted high on the wall for playback to the musicians. Mixdown monitors are a different animal.

Put them wherever you want but if you are unable to accurately asses what you are recording, what is the point? I vote to make sonic excellence a priority and everything else comes in second. If you do not set up your tracking room with acoustic treatments and you refuse to have the monitors positioned in the optimum listening spot, maybe making music is too much work for you............