Speakers and Studio Monitors

How a Speaker Works

The driver is where the conversion happens. A coil of wire — the voice coil — sits suspended in a magnetic field. When current flows through the coil, the magnetic interaction pushes or pulls the cone attached to it. The cone moves air. Air movement is sound.

Coil, magnet, cone. That’s all a speaker is: a motor that pushes air in patterns that match the electrical signal fed to it.

A speaker is just an electromagnet connected to a cone. Send some voltage into the magnet and we move the cone. Turns out the opposite is also true — if you move the cone, you generate a little current. That’s why a dynamic microphone is just a speaker in reverse.

Size and Frequency

Bigger cones move more air, which means they can reproduce lower frequencies. Smaller cones move faster, which means better high-frequency reproduction. No single driver does both jobs well, which is why speakers split the work:

• Woofer — large driver for low frequencies
• Tweeter — small driver for highs
• Mid-range — medium driver for the middle (on three-way systems)

A crossover — an electronic filter inside the speaker — splits the incoming signal and sends each frequency range to the appropriate driver. A two-way monitor has a woofer and tweeter. A three-way adds a dedicated mid-range driver.

Ported vs. Sealed

A ported (bass reflex) speaker has an opening in the cabinet — a port or tube. Air from the back of the woofer exits through the port, reinforcing bass at certain frequencies. Ports extend low-end reach but can make the bass less tight, and the extension drops off steeply below the port’s tuning frequency.

A sealed speaker has no port. The bass is tighter and more accurate but doesn’t extend as deep. For mixing in small rooms, sealed monitors can actually be an advantage — they don’t excite room modes as aggressively.

Active vs. Passive

Active monitors have built-in amplifiers — typically one amp per driver, precisely matched to the speaker’s needs. Plug in a line-level signal and they play. Most studio monitors sold today are active. The amp-to-driver matching is done by the manufacturer, which eliminates a category of mistakes.

Passive monitors need an external power amplifier. You’re responsible for matching the amp’s power output and impedance rating to the speakers. Get the impedance wrong and you risk damaging the amp or the speaker.

Impedance

Speaker impedance (measured in ohms) is the resistance the speaker presents to the amplifier. When wiring multiple passive speakers to one amp:

• Parallel: Total impedance drops. Two 8Ω speakers in parallel = 4Ω. The amp works harder.
• Series: Total impedance rises. Two 8Ω speakers in series = 16Ω. The amp works less hard but delivers less power.

Always check that the total impedance falls within the amp’s rated range. Too low and the amp overheats or clips. Too high and you get reduced volume. This is Chapter 1’s series and parallel circuits in action.

Placement

Where you put your monitors matters at least as much as which monitors you buy.

Equilateral triangle: Your head and the two speakers should form an equilateral triangle — equal distance between each point. Tweeters at ear height. Monitors are typically toed in about 30 degrees — angled inward so they’re aimed at your listening position. The exact angle is approximate, and getting it right is part of dialing in your sweet spot.

Distance from walls: Speakers near a wall get bass reinforcement from the boundary effect (Chapter 13 covers this). Pull them away from the wall behind them — two to three feet if you can manage it. Corners are worse — bass energy accumulates there.

Desk reflections: The desk surface between you and the monitors creates reflections that color the sound. Raise the monitors on stands to get them off the desk, or tilt them downward so the direct path to your ears clears the desk surface.

Symmetry: Both monitors should be the same distance from the side walls. If one is closer to a wall than the other, the stereo image shifts because one side gets more boundary reinforcement.

Subwoofers

A subwoofer handles the frequencies below ~80 Hz that most nearfield monitors can’t reproduce accurately. Low bass is essentially omnidirectional — you can’t tell where it’s coming from — which is why one sub works for a stereo system. But it also means bass goes through walls, floors, and into your neighbors’ lives.

A Note on Multi-Channel Audio

If you’re using a subwoofer, understand the difference between a crossover sub and an LFE channel. A crossover sub handles the low frequencies from your main mix — your monitors roll off at some point and the sub picks up below that. An LFE (Low Frequency Effects) channel is something different entirely. It’s a dedicated rumble channel — think of Godzilla’s footsteps in a movie theater. That’s not bass from the music redirected to a subwoofer; it’s a separate channel designed for impact.

This distinction matters when you encounter surround formats like 5.1 and 7.1 (the “.1” is the LFE channel). Dolby Atmos adds height channels to the equation. You may not be mixing in surround today, but understanding the vocabulary now prevents confusion later.

Calibration

Set your monitors to a consistent reference level so your ears can develop reliable judgments about balance.

1. Send pink noise from your DAW at unity (0 dB) through both monitors
2. Use an SPL meter (a phone app works as a rough starting point) at your listening position
3. Adjust each monitor’s volume until you read approximately 79-83 dB SPL
4. Both monitors should read the same level — match them

Now you know that when your DAW output is at unity, you’re hearing at a known loudness. Your ears learn what a balanced mix sounds like at that level on your system. Consistency here is worth more than any plugin.

What to Practice

1. Set up the triangle. Measure the distance from your head to each monitor, and from monitor to monitor. Make them equal. Adjust height so the tweeters aim at your ears.
2. Calibrate with pink noise. Use a phone SPL meter and pink noise from your DAW. Match both monitors to the same level. Pick a volume that’s comfortable for working — not quiet, not loud.
3. Listen to the wall. Play music and push your monitors against the wall behind them. Hear the bass boost? Now pull them two feet forward. That difference is the boundary effect. Find the distance that gives you the most accurate low end in your room.
4. Play familiar music. Before you start a session, play a song you know extremely well through your monitors. If it sounds wrong — too bright, too bass-heavy, too thin — that’s your room and speaker position talking, not the song. Adjust until the familiar track sounds right.