Yamaha HS8, HS7 and HS5 room control settings

Every Yamaha HS monitor, the HS5, HS7 and HS8, has two switches on the back: ROOM CONTROL and HIGH TRIM. Yamaha doesn't say which position to pick, because the right one depends on where your speakers sit.

The short answer

Start there, then check by ear (below). Use the same setting on both speakers unless one sits much closer to a wall than the other.

What the two switches do

ROOM CONTROL turns down everything below 500 Hz by 2 or 4 dB. That covers all the bass and the low mids. It's there because a speaker near a wall or in a corner plays more bass than one out in the open. HS monitors have their bass port on the back, aimed right at the wall, so the wall matters even more.

HIGH TRIM turns everything above 2 kHz up or down by 2 dB. It has nothing to do with boom. Try -2 if your room is bare and bright (hard walls, no rug, no curtains) and +2 if it's soft and dull. Otherwise leave it at 0.

Yamaha's manual says to start with the LEVEL knob at 12 o'clock and both switches at 0, and to keep the speakers at least 1.5 m from walls and corners. If you can't, and on most desks you can't, it says to use ROOM CONTROL, with a bigger cut the closer the wall is.

The LEVEL knob

The LEVEL knob has a click in the middle, at 12 o'clock. Leave both speakers there, so left and right play at the same level, and set your listening volume from your audio interface or your Mac. Turning one speaker up to make up for weak bass on one side only pulls the sound toward that speaker. Uneven bass between left and right usually comes from the room, so fix placement first.

Check it by ear

Use the table as a starting point, then let your ears decide.

1. Play a song you know well with a steady bass line, at the volume you normally work at.
2. Listen to the bass notes one by one. Do some jump out while others almost disappear?
3. Move both ROOM CONTROL switches to the next position and play the same part again.
4. Keep the position where the bass line sounds most even, not the one with the least bass.

For a cleaner test, the free Room Bass Test plays a slow bass sweep in your browser. Listen for the spot where the sweep swells up. If one note still swells at -4 while everything else sounds thin, ROOM CONTROL has done all it can.

What ROOM CONTROL can't fix

ROOM CONTROL is a broad, gentle cut that turns all the bass down together. That's the right fix for a wall, because a wall adds bass across the board.

Your room adds a different problem. Its size makes one or two bass notes much louder where you sit. ROOM CONTROL turns those notes down by the same amount as everything else, so they keep sticking out. Push it to -4 to tame them and the kick drum and bass guitar go thin, but the boomy note still stands out.

Moving the speakers or your chair changes which notes boom. Our post on whether moving your monitors fixes boomy bass explains why it rarely gets rid of the boom.

Unboom is for that leftover note. It plays a quiet sweep, listens with your Mac's microphone (or lets you pick the boom by ear), and turns down just that note in your music and video apps. It only cuts, never boosts, so it works on top of whatever ROOM CONTROL setting you chose.

FAQ

HS7 or HS8 for a small room?

Both work. The HS8's 8-inch woofer plays deeper than the HS7's 6.5-inch one (Yamaha lists 47 Hz against 55 Hz), so it reaches more of the low notes a small room exaggerates. If you haven't bought yet and your desk sits close to a wall, the HS7 is the easier pair to tame. If you already own HS8s, keep them: set ROOM CONTROL for the wall and turn down the boomy note.

Should both speakers use the same setting?

Usually, yes. If one sits in a corner and the other doesn't, try one more step of ROOM CONTROL on the corner speaker.

Will the HS8S subwoofer help with boomy bass?

No. A subwoofer adds bass to a room that already exaggerates some of it. Fix the boom first, then decide whether you still want a sub.