Get To Know Your Speakers

When preparing to set-up speakers for a live gig, studio or whatever purpose that you need to amplify a sound source, it is of great importance that you get to know your speakers first. This means knowing technical details usually written on the back of the speakers such as the power voltage required, ohm rating, wattage and frequency responce. There are other more details indicated but these four are the most important.

You may ask why? Well, just imagine if you accidentally plugged in a 110volt powered speaker to a 220volt outlet. Not only did you damage your unit but such problems can be a cause of delay or even failure of an event. Or perhaps youˊll get confused and annoyed by the sound quality of your mix just because you are unaware that you have a speaker to amp ohm rating mismatch when using passive speakers.

Knowledge of how much wattage is needed for a venue relevant to the number of attendees is of great importance for live gig set-ups. You can either overpower or underpower your speakers if unaware of such details.

Now that you have the right voltage, wattage, matched amps or active speakers where the ohm rating is a perfectly sealed match, we go to frequency response which is a necessary detail before you calibrate your cross-overs and equalizers. Think of it this way - you canˊt put a pitcher of water into a small glass. You will just spill the water, make a mess and waste it. In audio language, you must not feed any frequncies which are beyond the speakersˊ frequency response. For example, monitor speakers with an effective frequency response of 100hz to 19khz should not be fed with 60hz signals. It will just cause noise and ruin your whole mix. Knowing the speakersˊ frequency response and feeding what to which speaker is the key.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of sound engineers who will just jump into calibration and mixing of a system without even knowing the details of the speakers which is a big mistake.

By knowing your speakers well, not only do you protect your equipment but you are also guaranteed of a better mixing experience and quality sound.

Summary tip of the day: Know the technical specs of your speakers before doing anything; and that means everything.