Should I worry about how far I keep my reference monitors away from my tower/interface?

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.

Hearing loss is at epidemic proportions for today's musicians.. as everything is amped and electrified.  The big things to help are:

1. Always have a brickwall limiter on your master when you are sound designing, and composing!  Do not forget this.

2. Extreme high's and low's cause more damage than mid frequencies.  Near-field monitors are supposed to be close, but you should not need to have there volume anywhere near mid level...  Low, low volume is best.  Turning up to check a mix, or check a certain frequency is probably ok.

3.  Genetics are going to determine just how prone you may be to hearing loss.  Although certain loudness will kill anyone's hearing.

4. Advances have been, and are continually being made in the fight against NIHL, and a cure may appear within 15 to twenty years.

5. Get your hearing checked regularly..  I know several musicians, "my age, younger and older," they can not hear a bloody thing.  And many of them did not play in loud rock bands like myself for years, and years...  What's the difference?  I wore ear gear when we played out..  except for the odd practice, or when I was rocking out at home to my marshall...  I wore ear gear at practices and home as well.

I notice producing..  No ear gear needed.  Even my very inexpensive Alesis Monitors are so quiet and clear.. They only get loud if I go ahead and turn them way up..

Anyways..  One of the best mix engineer's I ever met..  He can not hear a thing.  Its going to be one loud session in his studio whenever you are there, trust me on that..  you can't even speak up to him, cause he will not hear you... he turns the volume up like a live rock concert..  and his mixes?  Banging..  He was doing major label stuff when I met him, I expect its the case now too.. unless he's retired.  (also wouldn't surprise me) but shucks..  if he could mix deaf back then, why not now?   

:p  go figure

oops..  think I just learned something big time.  Thanks craigb :-)

Yeah... I'm not too worried about hearing loss. My Scarlett monitor knob seems to keep things... uh... a little too quiet even. I just don't want to bork out my gear. If there is even a chance I'm gonna hurt something in my rig I want to avoid it. I was just hoping to have the monitors sitting on my desk permanently so I don't have to tear down every time I do something. I guess I'll just keep doing what I've been doing until I have more room.

Why play music loud anyway?

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....

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...

get NEW other people?? :)

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 :)

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

Cheers, spacey. I was considering something like that. Like creating some kind of sling. Here that would probably work rather well as there is a bulkhead right above my desk but I think the distance to the ceiling might be a little too far in a normal place (which I am desperately hoping to get in the next few months). I'm also concerned about them swinging or turning out of position. These monitors are HIGHLY directional. Even moving them half an inch makes a drastic change in the sound. Such a simple thing but this speaker placement business has me really messed up. :-(

BTW: even the new flat LCD displays will cause noise in the pickups on guitars. So be aware of that. the old CRT ones were really bad for that but the new ones will cause noise too. 

Beepster


I've never seen these spikey things ya'll are referring to... and what's a "terminal valet"? A parking attendant with 6 months to live? ;-p

Exactly!  I just have them hold the audio monitors for me (too bad I have to replace them so often though).
 
Actually, here's one version:
 

 
You can usually find them at any PC-type store.

Ah, I see. Those things are pretty pricey though, aren't they? I'd actually like a few of them at some point because my different chairs and their heights but I gotta go ghetto for now lest I starve... more.