Are 8" Monitors Too Big For A Small Room?

[Carpenter]

My first instinct is to get the biggest monitors one can afford, but it seems like I've heard about monitors that are too big for a space actually causing mixing problems.

What size monitors should I be looking at for say a 9'x11' room?

[Benedict]

An 8" (assuming it is better overall quality) is better as a rule. Of course, assuming that anything, in reality, is as simple as an either/or.

It is then going to depend on how loud you want to run those suckers. And how soon you may be in another room, so as not to have to buy more speakers which wastes money you could have managed better with a long-term view.

Technically there is all that stuff about wavelength so a 16' bass note needs 16 foot to develop but then no one is allowed to listen to music in any room less than 32' with a perfect listening position. Better rip that stereo out of your car then LOL

Get a good quality monitor and learn it well.

[ramseysounds]

Treat the room first then invest in monitors

[Michael L]

Treat the room first then invest in monitors

+1
I have 8” 3-ways in a small room & have problems treating sound pressure reflections:
https://www.acousticfields.com/room-aco ... flections/

[reggie1979]

Well, it's just me but I think HS7's or VXT 6's are better suited for a room that size. Treatment or not.

[fgimian]

In my opinion, an 8" woofer is indeed too big for your room. I have a larger room and opted for 6.5" woofers in my monitors. Treating your room is a must, particularly behind the monitors.

Choosing the right monitors can make all the difference in the low end. The EVE SC207s I have here (after owning the ADAM A7s for 10+ years) have an incredible low end that's far better than the ADAMs even though the woofer is the same size. I feel no shortage of detail in the low end on these monitors. The SC208s (which have an 8" woofer) would honestly be very muddy in my room, I found them too bassy even at the store which was quite large.

[Scotty]

I found 8 inch monitors to be too big for my room. The bumps in the nodes were worse ... I went from Event ASP8s to Adam A7xs and Iloud Micro Monitors... I double and triple check my bass on headphones and in the car. It works better for me than overpowering the room with bigger monitors.

I also check my mixes on an inexpensive computer speaker system with a sub-bass woofer . I know how those sound with a lot of music / reference mixes so it is a good check on the bottom end.

[Distorted Horizon]

Buy biggies and mix with headphones. You'll eventually have a bigger room and buy those bigger anyway.

[Forgotten]

Technically there is all that stuff about wavelength so a 16' bass note needs 16 foot to develop but then no one is allowed to listen to music in any room less than 32' with a perfect listening position. Better rip that stereo out of your car then LOL

I always wondered where that 'rule' came from, considering the length assignment for pitch came from organ pipe length, which had nothing to do with the size of the room. Wavelength for audio frequencies is way longer than most people's studios.

[Benedict]

Technically there is all that stuff about wavelength so a 16' bass note needs 16 foot to develop but then no one is allowed to listen to music in any room less than 32' with a perfect listening position. Better rip that stereo out of your car then LOL

I always wondered where that 'rule' came from, considering the length assignment for pitch came from organ pipe length, which had nothing to do with the size of the room. Wavelength for audio frequencies is way longer than most people's studios.

Yup, the 16' setting on a Model D is the same pitch as the 16' pipe on a pipe organ. Which incidentally is 16' tall. The really big organs ended up having to lay pipe (yes I know you want to put that in quoted out of context) instead of having it vertical seeing a +32' ceiling is not so easy to do. This is a big part of what drove electronic organ development.

But a room doesn't really need to be 32' to hear Snoop's undercarriage play adequately. We developed other methods that are infinitely more practical - even if not quite so elegant.

[Forgotten]

Ah OK, so not related to wavelength at all. I've heard people talk about it being related to wavelength, but I guess that's just a misapprehension.

[Benedict]

Yes it is because to create a note that low required a box twice the size. The pipe had to be physically 32' long to create the note. That note didn't exist before someone made a 32' pipe, went home to the wife and said "f**k me wife for I am a God as I can create thunder with my 32' pipe". She was nowhere near as impressed has he hoped so he set about working on the electric organ, electric bass and then the Sine-Sub.

Technically you still need a 32' room to get that Sub to generate the whole wave cycle clearly - laid out like a picture it is 32' from zero-crossing at the start to the zero-crossing where the wave starts again/repeats its cycle. That is a 32' piece of paper with a picture of a sine wave on it!

Pull up a spectrumulator and press C3. See the space between the spikes. Press C2 and note the space between the spikes has doubled. Now press C1 and see that space between the spikes has doubled again. That's like 4 times the space, which in room terms is huuuuggeee.

But in reality, no none cares if it speaks clearly or not these days. They just want it to be blammin' so we don't fuss over the purity of the organ pipe and don't care a whit if that wave has to fold on itself in our iBuds. And not should we really as we only want to hear the song.

[Scotty]

So all that being said ... yes for smaller rooms 8" woofers are probably going to cause more problems than they will solve. I'd be going for 7" or 6" woofer... good set of headphones to check the lows and listen in the car to triple check with reference mixes you know well.

[kvotchin]

Nope. Get the monitors you like, and enjoy.

[BONES]

The obvious question that no-one has asked yet is how will the speakers be used? i.e. Where will they be situated in relation to where you will be listening to them? If, like me, you will have them on your desk, either side of the computer screen you are working on, then the size of the room won't matter because you will be using them as near-field monitors. Working like this takes a lot of headaches out of the process because it takes the room out of the equation.

OTOH, if you intend to mount them on a wall several metres from you, then you will need to worry about the acoustics of the space and that opens up a can of worms. My advice would be to stick with near-field monitors, which means 6"-6.5" inch are more than enough.

The final thing to take into account is that more money doesn't just buy you bigger speakers, it buys you better speakers. If, for example, I had two grand to spend on speakers, I'd be looking for the best pair of 5" near-field monitors I could find, not the biggest pair I could find because I reckon a great set of 5" speakers will sound better than an OK pair of 8" speakers.