Does any bods know if its ok to fill the bass ports on my monitors to reduce the bass or will it have side effects to the rest of the sound?? ive tried stuffing a sock in the port and it seems to work but not sure if this may damage the speaker or the sound in some way.

I would be cautious as to whether the speaker could overheat if it is active and the reflex design in any way relates to cooling of the internal amp. It may alter other factors in the speaker too. It is really a temporary measure to gain an alternative reference.

You should be ok just don't play at too high volumes then your amps will be running cool.

SafeandSound Mastering
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Unlikely to cause overheating issues. It will change the response dramatically and somewhat unpredictably. Can be used as a short term 'fix' but really, if our speakers are so poor that you need to fix them this way you'd be better selling them and buying something better.

H

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Thanks Hugh, Actualy ive got the new Neumann monitors wich i see you have given the thumbs up in other posts and the bass problem is to do with my room not the speakers but just thought blocking the ports my help, my studio is a very small 2 x 3 meter box at the back of my house with all solid walls so defo not ideal but gotta work with it somehow.

Quote Rola:

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Thanks Hugh, Actualy ive got the new Neumann monitors wich i see you have given the thumbs up in other posts and the bass problem is to do with my room not the speakers but just thought blocking the ports my help, my studio is a very small 2 x 3 meter box at the back of my house with all solid walls so defo not ideal but gotta work with it somehow.

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Seems a bit daft to reduce the performance and accuracy of the speaker when the problem is a bad room. Why waste money on excellent speakers that can't deliver what they are capable of for the lack of some room treatment.

Small rooms are always difficult, but investing a few hundred on acoustic treatment will allow you to actually hear what your nice speakers are capable of.

hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Quote Hugh Robjohns:

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Small rooms are always difficult, but investing a few hundred on acoustic treatment will allow you to actually hear what your nice speakers are capable of.

hugh

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Or build your own for less than 100! There's enough info on bass traps in the acoustics/DIY section, plus it's really easy and quite satisfying!

actualy i have already spend a few hundred on aurelex bass traps and acoustic tiles but as i have such a small room with all solid walls theres only so much i can fit in there, maby Hugh you could come and visit and give me a studio sos, i think you would find this room a real challenge, mesured it today and its 180cm x 260cm so could be the worlds smallest studio. i dont think it was daft to buy the best monitors i could afford, even if the room is wrong cheaper monitors would only sound even worse.

Hi Rola,

That's even smaller than my 2m x 2.5m. But haven't you left a couple of noughts off ?

Kj

Hi Rola!

Make sure you also have some decent headphones to give your mixes a second opinion!


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

well it took me a while to get used to the new monitors but after a few changes with some rockwool in the mini studio the neumann monitors sound amazing. i had mackie 624 before and they seemed to make anything sound good but these dont sound so good but i can hear every deatail now my ears have adjusted, before small eq changes seemed to make no diference but now i can hear even a tiny 1db notch in all frequencys.

Quote Rola:

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well it took me a while to get used to the new monitors but after a few changes with some rockwool in the mini studio the neumann monitors sound amazing. i had mackie 624 before and they seemed to make anything sound good but these dont sound so good but i can hear every deatail now my ears have adjusted, before small eq changes seemed to make no diference but now i can hear even a tiny 1db notch in all frequencys.

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Some years ago I owned for a few months a pair of active Alesis Monitor One's and decided to block the ports with old socks - a suggestion made by PW at the time. Before that, a pair of Tannoy ported boxes also plugged with old socks.

Plugging ports proved to be of limited value in my case (maybe I should have washed these old socks first!) since my room had little in the way of 'treatment' I wondered whether there was benefit blocking the ports at all without attention to the room acoustics, so set about adding bass traps to see.

At this time I also owned a pair of unported (passive radiator) Mackie 624's and used them in a smaller edit room. After which, I changed them for a pair of closed box loudspeakers (AE22).

What I was hearing thereafter was the edit room - which had no acoustic treatment at all. With the 624's, I hadn't really heard (or taken notice) how bad that room sounded until I changed to a pair AE22's.

This same edit room now has some thick bass trapping which has improved the room response. I chose not to use acoustic foam in such a small listening area because I'd read that foam is only of value from 200hz upwards (No doubt I will be corrected if that assertion is nonsense); and, as my room tip-ups and downs seemed to commence around 150hz downwards lotsa mineral wool trapping was required. I have a small amount of flutter left to deal with which might be tamed with acoustic panels at mirror-points.

The room is still rubbish, but better controlled rubbish !
and I have learnt the hard way, to my financial cost: treat the room, not the loudspeakers.

Mike.

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