It's the last thing you think about when building your studio, and yet the right chair might just be the most important purchase you make. The ergonomics of setting up an effective monitoring environment have been discussed endlessly ..
- near field triangle
- distance between monitors
- acoustic treatments
- tweeters at ear level
- reflections from mixing surface
- etc
.. but how much attention do we spend considering the best way to support ourselves during the long hours of editing and mixing?
Having been through ten different chairs over the last 20 years, we think we have discovered the ultimate studio chair, and guess what, it's a 57 year old design that was never intended for use in studios. In our quest we have tried ..
- office chairs (cheap, plastic and creaky)
- designer chairs (couldn't take the use and abuse)
- stools (never again)
- dinning room chairs (too uncomfortable)
We learnt a lot from these failures, so and here are the qualities we think are required for the perfect chair ..
- castors - you've got to be able to move around a bit to reach all your gear
- swivel - of course it must turn
- height adjustable - get those feet flat on the floor
- comfortable back support
- leather upholstery - great for maintenance
- steel arm rests - to take the abuse
And the perfect chair is? The Charles Eames steel frame office chair. Not only does it meet all our criteria, but it's a design classic, and excellent reproductions can be had for £150 on eBay.
Thanks for watching and reading
FairFax
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