You bought good monitors, set them up, and the low end sounds thick and slow. Some bass notes ring on. Others seem to vanish. It's tempting to blame the speakers, but they're rarely the problem.
It's the room, not the speakers
Low notes bounce between your walls, floor, and ceiling. At a few notes, the bounces add up right where you sit, and those notes get much louder. The rest of the bass sounds normal, so the whole low end feels uneven.
Take the same monitors to a different room and the boom moves to different notes. That's how you know it's the room.
Signs it's your room
- A few bass notes jump out while the notes next to them sound fine.
- The bass changes when you lean forward or roll your chair back.
- Your mixes come out thin on other speakers, because you turned down bass that was only loud in your room.
- Headphones sound balanced, but your monitors don't.
Things to check first
These are free, so start here:
- Distance from the wall. Monitors close to the wall behind them get extra bass. Pull them forward if you can.
- Corners. Corners make bass louder still. Keep monitors and your chair out of them.
- Where you sit. The exact middle of the room is often the worst spot for bass. Move your chair a little forward or back and listen.
- The bass knob. Many monitors have a switch or knob on the back for placement near a wall. Check the manual.
The free Monitor Placement tool suggests where to sit and where each monitor goes for your room's size.
When moving isn't enough
Moving things changes which notes boom, but usually one stays. Your room's size decides it, and you can't change that.
That leftover note is what Unboom is for. It plays a quiet sweep, listens with your Mac's microphone (or lets you pick the boom by ear), and gently turns down just that note in your music and video apps. It never boosts anything, and one switch turns it off so you can compare.
Want to hear your room's boom first? The free Room Bass Test runs in your browser.
FAQ
Should I buy different monitors?
Probably not. New monitors in the same spot will boom at the same notes, because the room decides them.
Will a subwoofer fix it?
No. A subwoofer adds more bass to a room that already exaggerates some of it. Fix the boom first.
Do bass traps help?
Yes, big ones in the corners help. They take space and money, and small rooms often need a lot of them. Unboom works with or without them.