User Manual
14
A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors
same plane
(ideal)
same half of room
(acceptable)
In general, you will want to avoid placing your
subwoofer too near to reflective surfaces, like a wall
or in a corner, as this will exaggerate the bass
energy and make your monitor system sound
“boomy.” But every room is dierent, and some
subwoofers perform just fine near a wall, so use your
ears rather than your eyes.
Once you find the place in the room where the bass
sounds the smoothest, place your subwoofer in that
spot, return to the mix position, and listen again.
You may need to adjust the location; just keep
making small adjustment (a foot or so at a time)
until the bass response sounds as even as possible.
Don’t locate your subwoofer where it will exaggerate
frequencies, as this will have the opposite eect on
your mix. For example, if your system has a bump
around 100 Hz, what you hear will not accurately
reflect what is in your mixes, so that massive kick-
drum punch you hear in your mix environment
won’t be there when you listen in your car.
Calibrating Subwoofer Level
Just as it is important to make sure your full-range monitors are calibrated to the same level, you must ensure that your
subwoofer is calibrated to match the full-range speakers. There is no need to recalibrate your studio monitors if you
followed the 85 dB standard reference described earlier. If you are connecting your full-range system to the outputs of
your sub, rather than to the outputs of your audio source, you should recalibrate your full monitor system.
1. Turn your subwoofer input level to its lowest setting and power down your full range monitors.
2. Play 20 Hz to 20 kHz, full-bandwidth pink noise at 0 dB through the outputs of your primary audio source.
3. Turn up the outputs of your primary audio source to their Unity Gain setting.
0
GND
4. Begin slowly increasing the input sensitivity of your
subwoofer until the acoustic level of the test tone reaches 79
dB SPL. Again, take your SPL measurement holding your
meter at arm’s length at a 45-degree downward angle, where
your head will be.
5. If your subwoofer has a variable lowpass filter, set the filter
to its highest frequency. This will create an overlap between
your subwoofer’s and your full-range system’s frequency
responses.