In taking an active role of cultivating my love for music, investing in a Roland TR-8s, and consciously setting aside time in my day for music, my dissatisfaction with the sound in my bedroom reached full maturity. Powered by two Passive Aggressive speakers from parts express that I built in my senior year of college my room was not being served by the very tiny and also cute units - especially for deep electronic listening. And so I began to look into buying a pair of mid grade studio monitors, but $4-600 was an unappetizing number and I got to plotting and scheming instead.

At one point I hung the Passive Agressive speakers with dead climbing rope. Didn’t sound great but looked awesome.

I had a pair of C Notes (also designed by Parts Express) in my living room which are much better and could have been moved into my bedroom, but I was very hesitant to make the switch. I imagined it would significantly nerf the sound in my living room which I love for movies, naps, cooking - and my roommate also seemed to enjoy them and I didn’t want to strip him of that joy. But at the end of the day, I do more serious listening in my bedroom and I wanted to start producing again, so it didn’t make any sense to have the good speakers out there. The ~$120 C Notes are known for punching much higher above their weight class and IMO they sound much better than common ’entry level’ Rokit KRK monitors which are way too bass pilled and muddy (I will take any opportunity to talk shit on those speakers). I hate a floppy bass, much prefer something more clinical, precise, which sometimes leads me to underpowered low end but I’m changing my ways.

Built the C Notes almost 6 years ago in 2020. Painted and lacquered with the help of my father.

Before moving those larger speakers in my room, while my tiny passive aggressives were driving the space, I had determined and unlocked the optimal speaker placement in my tiny 7’ x 12’ bedroom which is probably 75% bed and by sheer force of will has undergone at least 4 different major iterations. Desk, no desk all bed, floor desk, no speakers, rope suspended speakers, twin sized bed. Anyways, what I settled on as the best way to fill the room with sound was actually the most obvious and conventional placement of firing down the narrow length of the room. This made the bass of the most natural and full sounding I’d heard, but it made the soundstage centered for a spot that was never where I was sitting when listening which was why I was apprehensive of trying this in the first place. But what I have learned is that if I actually want satisfying sound I need to make the room sound good first and instead of developing novel speaker placements, develop a novel room layout.

This all brought on the desire to get some bigger better speakers in my room ASAP. Which now, after moving in the C Notes , I’ve gotten to a point where I am fairly satisfied! I can actually edit sounds on the TR-8s and be fairly comfortable in the sonic accuracy, I can mix again and actually hear when a track’s low end is overbearing or has subtleties that could clash or pair well with another, and it is way easier for me to get levels right. I tend to make my kick way too fucking loud because mmmm it feels so good in my headphones but in a room it sounds horrible.

Anyways I will follow up on this diary entry as I think of a way to layout my tiny room in a way that makes it easy to play and listen. This is what my room looks like at the time of writing this.

Drum machine at the foot of the bed for best sound imaging.