When I first heard about the Auralex MoPADs, I was skeptical. Once I got them in my studio, however, I changed my tune.
The MoPADs are monitor isolation pads. They’re designed to live between your studio monitors and the surface on which they are resting. Why is this important?
Good Vibrations
We all know that sound, by definition, is vibration. When a speaker vibrates, it not only vibrates the air around it, but it also vibrates whatever surfaces it comes in contact with.
You’ve probably seen pictures of a speaker suspended in an anechoic chamber by a couple wires. This is how they test the frequency response of speakers, they hang them in a super-quiet room. They are able to hear the speaker by itself, as it was intended to be heard.
That’s the key. If your studio monitors are sitting on a big desk, shelf, table, or even speaker stands, the sound of your monitors will be effected. This becomes particularly noticeable in the bass frequencies. The surface begins to resonate with the speakers, causing the low frequencies to become less defined.
Decoupling
Here’s where the MoPADs come in. They will, in essence, float your monitors, acoustically decoupling them from the rest of your studio (and the world!).
What does that mean? This translates to a huge improvement to the bass response of your studio monitors. I kid you not. As soon as I started using the MoPADs, my monitors suddenly sounded deeper, and the bass was tighter with better definition. In fact, I even tried them on a cheap $100 pair of 3-inch monitors, and the MoPADs made even these sound a lot better. Suddenly there was more bass, even out of these tiny little 3-inch speakers.
In addition to the acoustic benefits, MoPADs also have a nifty little feature that allows you to angle your monitors up or down by 4 or 8 degrees using a few extra pieces of angled foam. Ideally, your monitors will be placed at ear-level height. if that’s not possible, the MoPADs take care of that by angling them up or down as needed, so you can listen to your monitors head-on.
The one downside of the MoPADs is that if you need to angle the monitors up by 8 degrees, you’ll need to face the “Auralex” logo towards the back. This isn’t a huge deal, but it’s kinda nice to have that logo facing to the front.
Great Value
MoPADs sell for $40. I can think of no other single piece of gear that will create such an improvement for so little money. Most music gear is subjective. What sounds good to me may sound bad to you. Auralex MoPADs, however, will make your monitors sound better.
There have been plenty of times where someone has told me I had to try out a piece of gear, that it would sound so good. I get it into my studio, and sometimes I don’t hear a difference or improvements. MoPADs aren’t that way. You really will hear a difference, and you’ll be able to get better mixes because of it.
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That was the sort of change I heard when going from monitors on a desk to on stands.
Speaker stands are about that price and make a huge difference.
I use a square of 2″ 12lbs density rigid fiberglass under my monitors on the stands.
PS I think we have the same desk, is yours a 3 piece L shape, one with a shelf?. During my last studio redesign I got out the hacksaw and got rid of the shelf, I now have the two desks side by side with a gap in between for my rack and filling the gap on top is my MIDI controller.
Keep up the good work Joe, this site is Epic win so far.
~Jon~
Audio Geek Zine
The Home Recording Show
Thanks Jon! I’m glad we’ve found each other’s sites.
Hello Joe!
Great Website… very well written and informative articles. I’ve read all of them!
Nice design and layout also.
My question on this particular article is purely cosmetic.
I would prefer if the MoPads were a darker gray or black.
Would spray painting them a light coat affect the acoustic properties of the MoPads?
Do they need to “breathe” a little if at all? I’m thinking because it is foam that the paint
might clog up the fine pores or affect it somehow. Your thoughts?
Thanks William! You could always wrap some dark-colored cloth around them. It’s not as important for the MoPADs to be able to breathe, since they’re mainly just “floating” the monitors, not doing a lot of absorption, per se. Now if we were talking about foam on the walls, then yes, you would want to use some sort of breathable cloth to cover them.
I’m such an idiot. A pair of these pads came with my Yamaha powered monitors and I had no idea what to do with them or where to put them so I stuck them in storage. There was no mention of them in any of the product documentation (that I recall)! I can’t wait to get home and put these in the right place *underneath* my monitors. Thank you so much for that picture. Face, meet palm. It’s amazing how sometimes the most obvious thing eludes us.
“Face, meet palm.”