I've got a room that is 18" x 12" with a chimney breast bang in the middle. Symmetry is perfect.

Ergonomically it would be better to have my studio monitors firing along the breadth but somany articles here say fire along the length of the room. I've been in a lot of prostudio control rooms where it's breadth rather than length...

Is it really that important?

It just depends. Try it both ways. You're probably going to want to use quite a lot of absorbtion to the sides of the listening position, so I wouldn't worry about the potential disparity in symmetry by moving to the other axis. What is much more of an issue is having your listening position bang in the middle of a horrible peak or trough in the frequency response. The problem with firing down the short axis is that usually you have absolutely no flexibility in where you put the monitors and then yourself. Because you tend to have to place them as close to the wall as possible, in order to then have enough room for you to put the things you need in front of you, and then leave room to get behind your sitting position. So say for example that it would be much better for you to be sitting a couple of feet further back, or for the monitors to be a couple of feet futher away from the wall, you find that you can't achieve that because of the space issue. I'd try it, but I expect you're going to want to fire the long way.

J

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www.jackruston.com

Edit: Sorry I read that as 8x12, not 18x12. I think you could make this work either way around in all probability unless you have a big desk to contend with. But I'll leave the reply above up in case it's helpful to anyone else.

J

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www.jackruston.com