 Have a quick listen to this mix, preferably not using your phone speaker and try to spot what's wrong with it. Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you're well. Hopefully you spotted that that mix was extremely lacking in the high frequencies and was sounding kind of muddy and you could correct that in the mastering process or by applying high frequencies to individual tracks in the actual mix and that would fix it right. But what if your speakers were lying to you? What if those high frequencies are actually fine and you've now added them unnecessarily and actually ruined the mix? Well, regular speakers actually do lie to you and so will studio monitors if you're not using them correctly. So today we're going to be looking at why we use studio monitors and how to use them correctly. And I'll also be explaining why I'm now delighted to be using these new Adam Audio A7Vs. So I'm assuming that you wouldn't actually use your phone speaker for mixing even if you could, right? Right? And that's because you instinctively know that these speakers are extremely lacking in certain areas, especially in the low frequency ranges. And the same is true for other regular speakers, especially the type that you would use for a hi-fi system. They'll either be hyped in certain frequencies or exaggerated, or due to low cost manufacturing and components just won't be that great. And that's fine. They're not designed to be tools for critical, accurate listening. And that's where studio monitors come in. Most studio monitors like the A7Vs are near field monitors. They're designed to be used within a few feet of the listener at ear level. Ideally, you'll form an equilateral triangle between yourself and your two monitors. Now unlike regular speakers, these will have amplifiers built in. They also have the connections you require to hook up to your audio interface. Now these are superior than regular speakers because they're built in amplifiers can be tailor made to the speakers or drivers inside. Now some studio monitors have many drivers, but most near field monitors will have two, a woofer and a tweeter. The woofer in a monitor takes care of the lower frequencies. In the case of the A7V, which reaches as low as 40 hertz, we have a seven inch multi-layer mineral woofer, which gives a cleaner response and less distortion. We also have for this woofer a dedicated 90 watt amplifier used specifically with it in mind. It's this kind of attention to detail which separates these monitors from regular speakers and even from lower quality monitors. Tweeters are used to hear the higher frequencies, in this case up to 45 kilohertz. Now we commonly see them in a dome shape design, but I must say I do prefer these ribbon style tweeters that we see on the A7Vs. I've just found that during long sessions, not only are they accurate, but they do help to reduce ear fatigue as well. Now these particular tweeters have a dedicated 15 watt amplifier and you may have noticed this shaping around them. This is called the wave guide and it's not just cosmetic. It actually affects the way we hear and use these monitors, but more on that later. Ports or the large holes that we see in studio monitors are there to relieve pressure so that the woofer can move more freely and depending on their size and position, they will affect the perceived frequency response. Now if you buy monitors that have rear facing ports, do make sure that you don't have them right up against a wall. Ideally you want them to be at least six inches or so away from the wall. Now these A7Vs have forward facing ports, so they're really versatile in terms of positioning within a small studio especially. Apart from making an equilateral triangle as we discussed earlier, I do find that I get the best out of my studio monitors if they're on stands and placed with the tweeters at ear level. I find that monitors which are placed on desks reverberate through the desk and really do muddy the sound. So definitely one of the cheapest ways that you can really improve the sound is to get your studio monitors on stands. Now the wave guides in these Adam A7Vs tend to disperse the sound horizontally. So you can still get a decent sound actually even when you move from your central position. However they do come into play also when we're talking about speaker orientation. The V in A7V denotes vertical which means that these monitors are intended to be used in a vertical orientation. Now as we discussed earlier, the woofer and the tweeter in a monitor handle different frequency ranges. The signal is split between the two and then great care is taken in terms of timing to make sure that it leaves both of those drivers at the same time and arrives at your ears at exactly the same time. But for that to work we have to have the same distance between your ears and the tweeter and your ears and the woofer. The problem is when we change the orientation of a monitor and we turn it over onto its size we can change those distances. The sound can arrive at your ears at different times and we can get phase issues which can greatly affect the accuracy of what you're hearing. Now thankfully with these A7Vs Adam Audio have allowed you to rotate the tweeters inside to a different orientation to help with that. And if you did angle the speakers in more aggressively towards you you could make those distances the same and get a decent experience. But for me personally I still prefer to use them in the vertical orientation. Studio monitors of course exist in an environment, your studio where you're not only hearing the monitors but you're also hearing reflections and build-ups of frequencies as well. So I believe that you must use studio monitors in a treated room. Now that could range from DIY solutions making the best of what you already have to professional solutions which include broadband absorbers, bass traps, clouds and diffuses etc. But even the best of studio monitors won't be helpful to you if you're in an untreated environment. Now in terms of tuning your studio monitors to that environment I will say that these A7Vs have some great features. The rear panel of the A7V reveals four bands of equalization so that we can tune our monitors to our room. We can even use the Adam Audio software to make these adjustments from the comfort of our listening position. But how do we know which adjustments we need to make for our room? Sound ID reference is a system for analyzing your room and determining how the output needs to be adjusted to account for it. It essentially outputs a profile which you can use within a plugin in your door to correct the sound for mixing. You just have to make sure that you remove that profile when you export your mix. Now Adam Audio with the A7Vs have cleverly allowed us to be able to upload your sound ID profile to your monitors correcting at the monitor level so you don't need to use a plugin in your door anymore. In fact you don't even have to have a computer connected. If your room is untreated then you may still be better off with a good quality pair of studio headphones. However I still believe that the ultimate mixing experience is with good studio monitors in a well treated room. Studio monitors are designed to have a wide flat frequency response and have features leaning towards someone doing mixes for many hours in a studio environment. You will hear things with these monitors that you can't hear on other speakers and if you can't hear things you can't fix them. Now of course better design, better quality materials and even better manufacturing tolerances will result in more accurate sound and that's why moving forward I will be sticking with these Adam Audio A7Vs. Unfortunately however they have already revealed to me some problems with my older mixes which I hadn't noticed at the time. Are these budget monitors? No but I do feel that with that extra you pay you do get noticeably better results. Check the links in the description below to find out how much they cost in your part of the world. Now if budget is still a problem for you I can still highly recommend my previous monitors the Adam Audio T8Vs. I made a review about those a couple of years ago which you can watch right here.