Define: Near Field

I’ve been noticing some comments regarding near field as if it is a matter of having small speakers on your desk with you, or somehow otherwise only at most 3 feet from your head. I’ve been of the understanding it’s not a literally near distance. It’s a matter of angles. The Cardas website even goes so far as to says it’s an equilateral triangle. So which is it? And is there an authority on the topic or a documented origin of the term?

Room Setup: Near Field

 

triangle but with a caveat- a more than usual amount of space around the perimeter in all directions. The diagram above- expand as your room will allow.

 

That’s an important clarification. I forgot to mention the space around.

 

I prefer near field because in theory you hear more of the speakers and less of the room. And boy do I have a crappy sounding room. I’m somewhere between 5&6 feet away from my speakers. My room is 28 feet long.

 

It's both. The triangles are essential. But they're essential for mid and far field listening too. Nearfield though you sit near enough so that room decay times aren't haven't a huge impact on the listening experience because you're so close the direct sound is dominating your experience

 

I'm glad you asked this question. When this came up a year ana half ago, I asked about if an equilateral triangle defined nearfield listening after reading the Cardas site. In this thread, avanti1960 and chervokas both seem to agree that it is triangles and space around it to help ensure the room is not influencing the sound heard. So, going back to my question of 2017, in my outdoor system I have it set up as an equilateral triangle with 60' between the speakers and 60' from myself to each speaker. Room decay times are non-existent, as there are no walls. So, it would appear that my outdoor system is indeed a nearfield setup. Finally, some closure on a question that's been nagging at me for quite some time.

 

The way I define it is, the way I've seen them used in a dozen studios, when you don't want to hear the room, and you don't want a soundstage laid out in front of you, and you want your listening position to be such that you can listen carefully and critically to every facet of the recording that you might want to tweak or un-tweak, and appreciate the modifications without the confinment of having the inaccurate "soundstage" in your head from a pair of cans.

 

You literally need to be near the speakers for the set up to be "near field." This isn't a completely abstract idea. "Near" in the phase has the normal, common meaning. The reason people do near field set ups -- and they're mostly common in media control rooms and recording studio control rooms -- is in order to minimize the room issues, in order to hear very tight detail, and in order to deal with a particular size of a space. But the reasons why people use a near field setup don't define what a near field set up is, being near the speakers does.

In your outdoor system, you have different issues (dissipation over space, the need for high SPLs) and goals -- you're not doing control room style listening where you're listening for intricacies of detail -- and the set up where you're 60 feet from a speaker and the speakers are 60 feet from one another, is not a "near field" setup. 60 feet is not "near."

 

in studio world, nearfield is about 3 feet away from the speakers

in hifi realm, id say nearfield is up to 5 feet away from the speakers

 

I didn't think of this distinction, so I voted for the 3 feet.

 

In the Odyssey Audio room at this past June's T.H.E. Show, Klaus had to set up his speakers the best way he could in the small room. Talk about near field, the speakers were halfway into the space he was given! But hey, it worked.

 

I think I would call this far-field listening. Seems you might have birds chirping, lawn mowers growling and neighbors calling the young ones along with dogs a barkin' all effecting the "details" of the music you might be listening to. The similarity might be an outdoor concert venue.

 

Nearfield was certainly developed for small monitor mixing, so the distance typically was the back edge of the mixing consol to the mixers ears and placing the speakers in an equlateral triangular spacing. The larger monitors many times were set in the wall on the other side of the console and I would think that was mid-field listening. I would think 3 to 5 ft near and 5+ to 8 ft mid-field, but these numbers are really dependant on the equipment and room dimensions / layout. The common factor is equalateral triangle and little to no room boundry effects.

 

I listen nearfield, about 5ft from speakers. Most of the reasons have already been mentioned in this thread. Besides, though my room is 20ft long, it is narrow and the layout works best with my ribbon speakers. Very engaging sound

 

My room is 24' x 14' and my set up is in a 5' triangle like the diagram parallel to the short side. It sounds great with good detail, imaging and even bass from the P3ESR's. One big advantage is that I need less amplifier power to get the levels I like.

 

I always thought nearfield meant the drivers are closer to your ears that anything else. Incluing the floor and any desk or shelf the speakers are sitting on. For example a friend has some small speakers on 3 foot pole stands that are about 2 feet from his chair for listening. Not my kind of setup, but it does sound pretty good.

 

Inside the bass line?

 

Google Scholar

Simplified
Room Setup: Near Field

 

You linked the same diagram I did.

 

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I was thinking you might want to READ what George Cardas wrote in case you hadn't already which I figured you hadn't because if you had then you wouldn't have started the thread with the question that my post containing his (George Cardas) synopsis just answered
My mistake
Take care
Michael

 

You don’t get it. 87% of the vote here disagrees with that site. You need to read better, if you’re reading at all.

 

Do you know who George Cardas is?
Regardless, I also linked you to hundreds of SCHOLARLY articles on the subject if you wanted more than the abbreviated clip I clearly labelled as "simplified"
No good deed goes unpunished here, that's for sure
And I have no idea how you would answer an objective question like this one with a readers' poll?
The only vote that would matter in that case would be Steve Hoffman's and possibly any other PROFESSIONAL sound men here that actually know what it is they are talking about

 

You missed the whole point of the post. I posted this because I see people in this forum all the time writing an opinion to the contrary. I accepted the Cardas definition as fact when I read it, but I wanted to understand why people here think otherwise. You couldn’t read past the subject line to figure that out. You were just too anxious to be a smarty and post a link to a Google.

Read the thread. Seriously.

 

Well then, I guess it's all settled. Thank you.

 

No, you missed my point
If I wanted to know something about a recording studio I'd ask someone like Steve Hoffman
Not conduct a poll among primarily record fans and collectors
Same as I'd ask a doctor about cancer and not what my neighbors think (unless they were oncologists)
So yeah, I missed the point, I thought you actually wanted an answer and not a group consensus?
You are correct, I still don't really understand what it is you're trying to accomplish
If you agreed with the definition given by someone who knows something about sound then why'd you use the opinion poll results to refute my post?
Now I'm really confused, but anyway, doesn't matter
Have fun and carry on