# Microphone placement for REW testing



## musicguy (Nov 28, 2012)

What is the best way to place a microphone for testing with REW? 

At listening position?
Ear level or slightly above or below?

And how do you treat the area around the microphone. I have a EMM-6. I have a leather couch and wondering about reflections from the couch giving me bad reading. 

I normally test in the listening position. 

musicguy


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

Typically you want the mic at ear level. If you’re taking a full range measurement, point the mic at the sound source and use a 0-degree calibration file. For low frequency measurements, it doesn’t matter where you point the mic.

I wouldn’t worry about reflections from the couch, for a at least a few reasons. For one, the frequencies most likely to significantly reflect will be the upper frequencies, and they’ll be 180 degrees off-axis (the mic is only truly unidirectional with lower frequencies). For another, the reflections will be attenuated so much that the mic will essentially ignore them, as it will always “give preference” as it were to the signal with the highest sound level. Even if they're not, I expect that any reflections from the couch will be totally overwhelmed by all the reflections from the room itself.

Regards,
Wayne


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