If you’re reading this your back probably hurts a bit. Not because you’ve clicked on a guide to the best studio chairs, but because you visit MusicRadar at all. Us creatives don’t have the best track record when it comes to looking after ourselves, and one of our worst crimes in this regard is easily that of our poor, prawn-y posture. Whether hovering creakily over a MIDI keyboard or curling up into ourselves while listening back to mixes, our physiological smarts are certainly lacking.
There are plenty of thrilling and transformative things you can spend money on in your studio, be it a labour-of-love home studio or a professional space. But – and this may be a little controversial – nothing could be more transformative than daring to invest in a good studio chair. Realistically, your chair is where you spend a vast majority of your time, whether tracking, mixing or procrastinating your next creative move. I might gently suggest that you deserve to be comfortable during this time.
It goes beyond comfort, though. Backache, cranial tension, painful joints and pins and needles – all discomforting, all detrimental to your long-term health, and all distracting too. How many times have you been distracted from a track or mix because your leg has gone dead, or your back has twinged, or you’ve been battling some placeless physical discomfort for hours? If you won’t invest in a good studio chair for your health, will you do it for your art?
If the answer is yes, and even if it’s a begrudging one, then you’ll want pointing in the direction of the best studio chairs. And I’ve picked six of them out for you, right here – each of which has a little something different to offer, be it a suitability for certain spaces, for long stints at the desk, or for low budgets. All of them, though, are guaranteed to be infinitely better than a pilfered dining room chair.
If you'd like to know my no.1 pick right away, I've gone for the Boulies EP500 because it provides excellent comfort during long studio sessions thanks to its adjustable armrests and in-built footrest.
If you’re angling for a little more info on what differentiates a good studio chair from a bad one, you’ll find some small enlightenments in my FAQ section below; otherwise, please take a seat!
Best overall
Build quality: ★★★★★
Comfort: ★★★★★
Value: ★★★★★
Overall: ★★★★★
The Boulies EP500 is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. It’s a chair designed to chameleon its way through different use cases – supportive enough for comfortable, structured work, and comfortable enough for a lean-back session of late-night gaming. It has a decently wide seat, for comfortable seating and repositioning, and the lumbar and head support is simultaneously reassuring and restful. It’s an everything chair, and there’s no better indication of that than the various features that make it so dang versatile.
I’m personally a big fan of the eight-way swivelling armrests, which can be manipulated in various ways to support your needs; even the pads can be rotated! If you’re alternating between deep-listening to mixes and playing instruments, or wheeling around your home studio to engage with different synths and controllers, you’ll find this an immediate godsend. The fold-out footrest is a great feature, too, and much welcomed after a long few hours of sitting up staring at your DAW.
The Boulies EP500 suits itself to many pursuits, both professional and leisurely. It can conform to your needs at a moment’s notice, and it’s reliably comfortable throughout. Any studio, home or pro, would benefit from the changeability of this smart (not-so) lil seat.
Best budget
Build quality: ★★★★
Comfort: ★★★★★
Value: ★★★★★
Overall: ★★★★★
As far as budget studio chairs go, you can’t expect to get much better than this racing-seat-style offering from Modul.
The Modul Studio Chair is an exceedingly well-padded desk chair, with gas-lift height adjustability, lift-up armrests and seat-tilt adjustment – which, together, meet practically all your needs on the ergonomics front.
The high-density foam that constitutes the padding is stiff and springy enough not to swallow you up; the nylon castors, meanwhile, are free enough that you can skate around with unburdened ease.
The whole base is nylon, which feels a little cheap – but the seat itself is great with back and neck support, presenting a great studio chair prospect for the smaller budget.
Best for comfort
Build quality: ★★★★★
Comfort: ★★★★★
Value: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★½
The Herman Miller Aeron is a distinctly executive piece of office furniture, but one which manages to achieve much more than “be a chair” and “be expensive”. It is four figures, yes, but it is also the last word in ergonomics. If you’re pulling 14-hour days behind a mixing desk or deep in your DAW, you want the best studio chair for back support, for ventilation, and ultimately for long-term comfort.
Via some clever tilt mechanisms and firm, supportive tensioned mesh seating, the Aeron manages exactly this. If you come away from your first go of it with a single thought, it’s probably “Wow, I could sit in this thing for hours.” In the best possible way, the Aeron gets out of the way, and lets you get on with your work without being interrupted by twangs, twinges or odd aches.
Chairs aren’t people. But if they were, the Herman Miller Aeron would be your chair’s favourite chair. It is an aspirational piece of studio seating equipment (albeit with an aspirational price to prove it), and the gold standard for long-term working comfort.
Best for movement
Build quality: ★★★★½
Comfort: ★★★★½
Value: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★½
When I'm working in the studio, I tend to do a lot of leaning - and I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard: leaning over the studio desk to fiddle with faders; leaning to my amps to tweak the EQ settings; leaning to get to the coffee machine to collect my tenth double espresso of the morning. You get the picture!
So what would really help is a studio chair that actually leans with you as you go about your business. Say hello to the Ergolab Stealth Chair with Standard Seat - it just might be the perfect studio chair for those of us who love to lean.
It is certainly not a cheap studio chair, let’s address that straight away – but that cost pays for a solid, well-made chair, with clever seat-tilting and ‘Free-Float’ backrest tech that keeps you supported as you roll around your studio plugging things into other things. Some may prefer to have a lengthier back to their chair, but for the weary lean-er, this is an easy choice to make.
Best elevation
Build quality: ★★★★½
Comfort: ★★★★½
Value: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★½
I've previously mentioned about the importance of having somewhere to put your feet while doing your thing in the studio.
Often, when I've been sitting in one place, I'm always tempted to to tuck my feet under the chair, which isn’t always good news for my back - especially if I've lost track of time and been sitting for longer than I should.
The Office Star Deluxe Mesh drafting chair solves this issue by including an adjustable footrest, which serves the dual purpose of raising my legs high enough to rest a guitar on it - a nice option to have if you find yourself tinkering with your acoustic in the studio.
This is a taller chair than many others on the list, and as such it won’t suit every studio arrangement, but for anyone with a raised or standing desk it is a great choice and it comes highly recommended.
Best for regular use
Build quality: ★★★★
Comfort: ★★★★
Value: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★
As purveyors of affordable, stylish furniture, we’re all familiar with Ikea. Yet with the Ikea Jarvfjallet office chair, I believe I've stumbled upon the ideal studio chair that'll also have a broader appeal for most people.
The chair is equipped with or without arms, and offers the perfect blend of comfort and practicality. With individual control over height, incline, lumbar support and headrest height, the Jarvfjallet chair can easily be made to fit any user.
The choices of fabrics and materials are well considered to balance price and longevity, and after trying it out in the studio, I believe it’s a great choice for that particular environment.
And, if your studio set-up is in your home, you can easily cart this around to another office space.
How to choose the right studio chair for you
Being a musician, it’s doubtful you’ll have any special interest in, or deep prior knowledge of, chairs and their design. For this, you can be forgiven – and from this, you can be ultimately absolved. Because the answers to questions you might have are right here. If you don’t know what differentiates one studio chair from the next, outside of obvious aesthetics, then these key criteria will help you pick the right one for you.
1. Practicality
The best studio chair for you is ultimately the one that ticks the most boxes for your own personal needs, whatever they may be. And a good start in this respect is to consider your own studio environment, or even how your average day in the studio looks. Are you spending the majority of it static, before your desk? Or are you a little more mobile, patching things in around the room and working at different stations?
Different studio situations lead to different demands on a studio chair. If you’re moving around all the time, and have various different heights or desk or control surface to manage, then you’d benefit more from something with dramatic height adjustment; if you have a small studio space, you’ll want a smaller form of studio chair to keep things relatively spacious.
2. Ergonomics
The big deciding factor in what makes the best studio chairs is ergonomics. Given that much of your studio time is invariably spent in front of a computer monitor or playing an instrument at your desk, your posture is a major point of consideration – concern, even, if you’re giving yourself musculoskeletal issues from maintaining poor postural habits in the process.
A good studio chair needs to be ready to provide robust support in the posture you ought to hold – which means a solid build, and some fine-tuneable elements to meet your own proportions. Multi-stage back support, head rests, proper seat angles – all key to maintaining good, healthy posture and improving long-term comfort. These attributes become especially important if you’re outside the 90% percentile of studio chair users, and need a chair to meet your needs where others tend not to be designed with you in mind.
3. Comfort
I've used the word comfort already, but it deserves a section of its own. Good ergonomics leads to good comfort, but they are not one and the same. Selecting the best studio chair for comfort doesn’t mean picking out the plushest-looking or most reclinable lazy-boy armchair you can find; too much of a good thing can ultimately spell doom for your back. A comfortable studio chair isn’t one you sink into, but one you can easily forget you’re sat in; adjustability goes a long way here, as does a careful balance of plushness and firmness in the seat provided.
4. Additional features
Beyond these criteria, it’s the little things that might seal the deal on a studio chair for you. Little things like cup-rests, built-in storage, or even how the thing looks can be big enough to catch your notice – and to help you differentiate between what is actually quite a fertile market for the back-achey musician or producer.
Picking out a studio chair on any of these criteria is never going to be as exciting as choosing your next reverb pedal or Eurorack module. But if you have ever experienced the persistent, dull back pain resulting from slouching at a desk, you'll know that it is a discomfort worth evading. Choose wisely; your neck, back and shoulders will thank you for it.
FAQ
Why do I need a studio chair?
When you’re in the business of making music, there are a million things asking you to spend money on them. New guitars, new guitar pedals, new synths, new plug-ins, new everything. Anything and everything that stimulates creative growth or practice is far more interesting than the duller side of running a studio space – the cables, the shelving, the furniture. The studio chair is often lumped in with these dull expenses, and sidelined accordingly. After all, you’ve already got chairs at home, right?
Dining room chairs, garden chairs, fold-up chairs: all have been gamely used as studio seating before, and all are unsuitable for our needs as studio denizens. They’re rigid, un-customisable and downright uncomfortable, conducive to aching backs and needy joints after even a short period of sitting. In the short term, this makes for a distracting time in your studio. In the long term, it can make for progressively-worsening musculoskeletal conditions.
A studio chair, purpose-built for long sessions at a desk or music-making station, is an adjustable device designed to meet your body’s needs – and eliminate some key barriers to both your mental focus and physical wellness. From a creative standpoint, a studio chair means you can spend more time making or mixing music without being interrupted by muscle twinges, cramp or discomfort; from a health standpoint, a studio chair is vital for preventing joint and posture issues from developing over time.
What makes a studio chair important?
The key word that applies to the function of the studio chair is ‘ergonomics’. For the uninitiated, ergonomics describes the way we interact with our environment – and how the things we interact with can be adjusted to better fit our needs.
The best studio chairs are hugely beneficial to the desk-bound musician for their ergonomic design; when adjusted to fit your proportions, a studio chair will provide support in all the right places, and some solid comfort besides.
The result is not just better musculoskeletal health, but improved concentration. Good posture means less aches and pains, hence more focus; with the best studio chair, you can get lost in your DAW, and stay lost in your DAW for longer.
What’s the risk of not using a dedicated studio chair?
It’s all well and good knowing that you should have an ergonomic studio chair – but what about the why? Why should you spend your hard-earned cash on a new chair when you could buy some new gear instead? Well, it isn’t just about experiencing better comfort and extending the amount of time you can sit at your station; it’s also about preventing unnecessary injury, in the short and long term.
Without one of the best studio chairs to support you, your posture suffers. This can lead to chronic back and neck pain, as your muscles strain to support you in sub-optimal conditions. Poor posture can also restrict circulation and pinch nerves, with their own short- and long-term impacts. Spending hours on a mix might cause some acceptable harm to your social life, but it shouldn’t be causing harm to your body too!
What makes a good studio chair?
The ideal studio chair is, effectively, an adjustable office chair that offers a little more in the way of comfort. You want adjustable height, adjustable armrests and, ideally, an adjustable backrest for support that aligns with the shape of your spine. Wheels seal the deal in multi-station home studio rooms, so you can propel yourself between computer, synths and outboard gear with reckless abandon – and without having to stand.
How do I choose a studio chair?
There’s a full guide above to help you with decision-making when it comes to studio chairs, but to cut a long story short… any chair that enables you to adjust height, seat angle and back angle; that has a firm, spine-friendly seat-back; and that has armrests you can move out of the way, is a good start on the studio chair front.
It’s for this reason that there’s a fair amount of cross over between creatives and gamers. Gamer chairs are often decent for studio purposes too, given they’re designed to be sat in for extended periods of time and to reduce bodily pain in the process. There’s even a gamer chair in my best-of list above!
What’s the comfiest studio chair?
Truthfully, the comfiest studio chair is the kind of studio chair you forget you’re sitting in. You don’t want a chair with plush cushions and a low tilt; these exacerbate issues rather than alleviate them, especially if you’re rooted to your seat for extended periods of time. You want firm, fair and supportive over anything, in order to ensure you don’t leave yourself in a painful position.
What can I do to improve my health when making music?
Making music is often a sedentary practice, especially when we’re glued to a desk or music workstation. Even the best studio chair can’t save you from the issues that present in a sedentary lifestyle. If you’re making music, you should already be taking breaks every hour just to keep your ears from fatiguing; use this time to stand up, move around, and stretch some muscles. The best studio chair isn’t designed to make you comfortable sitting for hours non-stop, but rather to support you for when you are sitting.
How we choose products
Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our guides.
When choosing what we believe to be the best studio chairs available right now, we combine our hands-on experience, user reviews and testimonies and engage in lengthy discussions with our editorial colleagues to reach a consensus about the top products in any given category.
First and foremost, we are musicians, and we want other players to find the right product for them. So we take into careful consideration everything from budget to feature set, ease of use and durability to come up with a list of what we can safely say are the best studio chairs on the market right now.
Find out more about how we test music gear and services at MusicRadar.
Why you can trust us
☑️ MusicRadar established 2007
☑️ Over 5,000 reviews on-site
MusicRadar first launched in 2007 and has been an authority on drum gear ever since, rigorously testing the majority of key launches since day one. The site is run by a diverse team of passionate musicians who live to gig, record and jam, alongside a core group of trusted specialist freelance writers. We understands what players need, because we’re players ourselves, and we test from this perspective.
Our team have been testing music gear for 18+ years, constantly refining our methodology, delving deeper into products and drawing on our experience of what has come before to understand today’s products better than anyone.
Meet the experts
James Grimshaw is a freelance writer and music obsessive with over a decade in music and audio writing. They’ve lent their audio-tech opinions (amongst others) to the likes of Guitar World, MusicRadar and the London Evening Standard – before which, they covered everything music and Leeds through their section-editorship of national e-magazine The State Of The Arts. When they aren’t blasting esoteric noise-rock around the house, they’re playing out with esoteric noise-rock bands in DIY venues across the country; James will evangelise to you about Tera Melos until the sun comes up.
Chris Corfield is the main author of our best earplugs for concerts guide and comes with a wealth of experience when it comes to writing about everything from guitar gear, synths and mics, to putting music production hardware through its paces. After 12 years covering all aspects of music, he knows how important it is to look after his hearing when testing products.
Latest updates
01/06/26: The guide now features a selection of new studio chairs and the How To Choose section has received an all-new update. We've also overhauled and reworked the FAQ section with new copy and additional questions. 14/08/25: This guide has been completely redesigned from the ground up to include new products and expanded information on each studio chair. Each entry now has a star rating, while the entire FAQ section has been re-written to give you more practical information about buying a new studio chair. A section on why you can trust the team at MusicRadar now features, while we've also added a "meet the experts" section so you can get to know the faces behind the names.
Read more
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