Tips for 2 ch Near-Field Speaker Placement?

I have a 24" monitor that I sit approx. arm's length from. Are there any tips for the placement of two small stereo speakers (approx. 4" drivers, 3/4" soft dome tweets)?

On the left and right side of your monitor?

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I thought some of the more audiophile-oriented crowd might have some fine tuning tips.

Find a way to get the tweeters at ear level or slightly higher. Try and place them at least 3' apart and 3' away from you. If they are normal bookshelf speakers, 6' apart and 6' away might work better. Main thing is to get them up high and slowly move them different distances apart and turn them so that the tweeters face your ears. Each room is different so I would advise using something like rightmark 3d sound test to get the positioning right for gaming.

http://audio.rightmark.org/products/rm3ds.shtml

I've always been told that the optimal configuration is for the tweeters to be at ear height, and the speakers should form an equilateral triangle (The distance between you and each speaker should be the same as the distance between the speakers), with the speakers pointed at you.

nalc said:

I've always been told that the optimal configuration is for the tweeters to be at ear height, and the speakers should form an equilateral triangle (The distance between you and each speaker should be the same as the distance between the speakers), with the speakers pointed at you.

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This. The tweeter thing is important and often overlooked. My bookshelf speakers are fairly tall (~13") to begin with, but even so, I have each sitting atop a CD-R spindle to get the tweeters right up to ear-level. Better to err on the side of slightly above ear-level than slightly below, in my experience.

the acoustic center should be at ear height.

ideally, the speakers should be placed off the desk and many feet in front of the desk (towards the front wall) such that the specular reflection off the desk is minimized or eliminated (read: blocked by the desk). use stands (cinder blocks when in a pinch) along with sorbothane feet for decoupling.

early-early (1-3ms) specular reflections are absolutely detrimental. get the speakers off the desk.

all of this can be verified with the envelope time curve (ETC) response as part of the free measuring software suite: Room EQ Wizard. the time-domain takes precedence here -- how indirect specular energy arrives at the listening position (gain with respect to time).

the ETC will also detail edge diffraction off the desk, your computer monitor, etc - such that you can play around with placement to minimize. eliminate (move) all edge diffraction generators!