I'd just as soon have my monitors a fair distance from my computer. On their own stands.

So far, knocking on a lot of wood here, there is no hearing loss here...but I usually keep things down a tad....

I place my gear where I can... due to very limited space for the studio. 

I do try to observe as many of the rules for placement as possible. 

Tower on the floor below the desk. 
Monitors on desk about 6 feet apart. One is on a makeshift shelf, the other in in a boxed in bookshelf ares (pictures are on my website)
Sub on the floor to my right firing into the room. 

I must work within the limitations of the system and the environment. 

Beepster - why don't you put your rig on the floor or out of the way of your working space? If I undertand you correctly, you're thinking of have the actual PC on your desk with the monitors next to it? First of all, wouldn't the fans and harddrive noise be irritating? Second of all, keep all magnets away from a case containing harddrives. I have never experienced a harddrive being wiped by magnetics from a speaker but I have seen some weird behaviour in a computer that was standing with a hi-fi speaker pressed up to it's side. It was old gear but still...

Thanks for the input guys. I think I'm just gonna have to continue tearing the speakers down after each session. The problem is I am crammed into one room and this desk is essentially my everything surface. I've got my two DAWs, my laptop, and a bunch of other crap I need accessible on it. I do all my web stuff, paperwork, eat my dinner, etc on it. I was supposed to have use of a whole other room in the house but it got taken over by other people (very angry about that). The desk is essentially a plank of plywood I put some wood laminate on top of which I attached to the wall. Would have been tons of room to store stuff under it but I had to put my actual store bought desk underneath the plank because I had no where else to put. I can't put my tower underneath it and even if I could it wouldn't work because I can't really bend over enough to plug/unplug stuff or whatever so the computers sit on top. I moved my printer elsewhere now that I don't need it as much which was sitting on top of my old rackmount system so I moved the new tower on top of that which has helped and I was hoping to squeeze one of the monitors into the leftover space on the rackmount and put my i/o box on top of it but then it would be smooshed right up against the tower. Anyway it's a real problem and it has been hindering my work. I just figured because the Mackie's claim to have some fancy magnetic shielding to protect monitors and other computer stuff it might be safe but yeah... I don't really trust it. Man I can't wait to get a new apartment. Cheers, all.

get NEW other people?? :)

Yup. Preferably ones that know when to go away. All should be well once I sort out a new living space.

Beepster


Hello, all. Hope everyone is having an awesome day. I'm trying to make the best usage of my deskspace here and wondering how concerned I should be about having a reference monitor pressed up against my tower and having my interface sitting on one. They are Mackie's and they claim to be magnetically shielded but I am hesitant to put them so close to my rig for obvious reasons. Any thoughts and or links would be appreciated. Cheers.

Hi beep,
i would move the interface away from a monitor more for concerns over electrical noise injection more than magnetic interference, though any small chokes in filters in the interface could conceivably be placed near saturation and affect performance... doubt it though.
i would certainly move the tower away from your monitors... mine is always on the floor out of the way... and speaker stands or at minimum auralex pads isilating the monitors from your desk are highly recommended... wookie's advice is stellar ..and probably signs of a misspent audiophile youth :D (says he with sand filled speaker stands, spikes top and bottom.)
 
oops...add a large "disregard" to most of this... just read your post so facts and reality overrules stuff :)

Is the idea of having the monitors off the desk just to eliminate vibrations? When I have more room I was just gonna set them up on small desktop stands and put some rubber flooring underlay underneath the stands and then underneath the monitors themselves (between the speakers and the stands). Alternatively I was going to build a shelf above the desk to set them on. They are nearfields and the Mackie manual says to keep them pretty close together. Like three or four feet apart pointed inwards to create an almost perfect triangle where the listener is the last point in said triangle.

Beepster there is the option of hanging them. Chain or rope from the ceiling.
Solves many issues.

Even though I prefer my terminal valets (as they're called), I also have floor speaker stands (the kind with the metal spikes on the bottom) that are easily movable.  Those might be another solution (or you could just use one to swing at these "other people").