PC Speaker placement

I have the A2s as well and have them on either side of my 19" monitor.

I've read that for nearfield speakers, the tweeter should be at ear height which mine are with the stands I just made. I have them about 6 inches from the wall behind my desk too.

I also bought the stands from Audioengine, and I agree they just decent, but definitely can be improved upon. How much did your homemade stands improve the sound by?

nice setup

I had that problem with the stands as well and ended up using some old Bose speaker stands that place the tweeters at ear level

I was actually pretty amazed at how the sound improved. I can hear a lot more of the details that these speakers can produce. I think the bass improved too, but that is probably just my imagination.

These stand consist of some old 4x4 white cedar I had leftover from a swingset kit and some 1x6 pine shelving. After several sandings and about 6 coats of black satin spray paint, they were good to go. I didn't realize AudioEngine was selling the stands yet.

EDIT: Just checked the AE site and now see the stands. Very similar to those being sold for the Adam 5 speakers by B&H.

The speakers may come with placement information in a small manual. In that case, you'd probably want to go with that.

Ideally, the speakers should be spread 60 degrees from your perspective as you sit at the desk (the distance between the two speakers should be roughly equal to the distance between each speaker and yourself). Tweeters should be roughly ear level. My speakers are angled directly towards me, but that is something you might experiment with. Certainly the size of your desk, how close it is to walls, etc. might create additional considerations. I mean, if getting the right angle will require your speaker to be buried inside a wall or sitting on top of your mouse, you might have to fudge a little.

Nice stands.
What did you make them from?

I've placed my A2's on stands as well (quite similar to the home made ones earlier in this thread). The tweeters are now at my ear level which improves the sound tremendously! I've also positioned the speakers slightly ahead of my screen to avoid reflection caused by the screen. The speakers are about 1m away from me and about 70 cm apart. They're slightly angled with "toe out" as this enhances the imaging (don't angle them out to much as it will cause a hole in the stereo image). My Nuforce sub woofer is on top of my desk behind the screen and centred between the A2's.

Sounds great!

This is good info. The mention of angling speakers "toe out" is interesting, since traditionally speakers are said to be toed in. Mine are "in" now, but I'm going to try different placements.

For speakers that close, I would recommend toeing them in. You may not need to do it for contrentic drivers but probably for top/bottom designs.

As I have been tweaking the placement of my A2's, I thought it would be good to bring this thread back up. Placement will affect all speakers but I do not think it is as much preference as it is finding the correct spot. Tough to do though. I have moved my A2's to this position:

10 1/4" from the back of the speaker to the wall.
35 1/2" apart, from inside edge to inside edge.
33" - 34" from my ears to the front baffle.
Very slight toe in, spikes under the front which tilt 12 degrees, on 7 1/2" cinder blocks (solid & basically inert)

The bass is impacted by moving the speakers from the wall after you have them on proper stands. Boom if too close and light if too far. I have found 1/2" makes a difference.

From the pictures I have seen, most speakers are too close together and are limiting the stage width. My mentor always said to be just inside of the equilateral triangle. You know you are there when the center images are in focus and they seem to float.

Surprisingly I have not seen the computer monitor really affect the image. The rear panels are there to reduce the first reflection. The panels in front of the speakers are subtle but open up the stage and let the bass dig a bit deeper. This was shown to me 20 years ago and I do it to all speaker set-ups in a conventional room, just thought to adopt it to the desktop environment. The stage has height, width, and some depth. Compared to the speakers directly on the desk, the results are so dramatic that my 10 year old could clearly hear the improvement. Wife said we went from a 3 to a 7 in quality. I agree. These speakers have a lot of potential!

I had some other thoughts on a speaker stand before I dug up the blocks. A simple 4x4 cut flat on the bottom with an angle cut at the top with a bit left at the back to hold the speaker. Could then spike the whole bottom or cut straight and spike the stands in the front as I have done.

I feel there is more to learn in the desktop platform and I hope others will contribute with ideas that have made improvements.

Enough small improvements can really add up. We need to open our minds.