I’ve been playing with a pair of Alesis M1 Active 320USB Speakers and found them to be quite boomy out of the box.
Boomy?
By boomy I mean that the bass sounds flabby and like there is an echo. To my ears this is not a very attractive sound at all. If you switch the Bass Boost on matters get worse, so out of the box they do not really live up to what you’d need or expect from a pair of multimedia monitors.
To be honest I have the speakers a little way from the wall so this may be contributing to the issue but being as I have nowhere else for them so something else needs to be done.
Quick fix
If you peer round the back of the speakers you will notice that there is a rear fire port. Whilst playing music I held my hand over this port and instantly noticed that this was the cause of the problem. I therefore tore up a sheet of A4 paper in half scrunched it up and stuffed the port effectively disabling the rear fire capability.
By doing this the speakers sound considerably more controlled – without the flabby bass. For some it might sound like all of the bass has gone… If you are missing this then that is the time to switch the Bass Boost to on. This such add some depth whilst listening at low volumes.
Other Materials
Less dense materials will have a less drastic impact on the rear fire port so you might want to experiment with foam or simply taping over the ports. Alternatively something heavier will have a more severe bass reduction effect if this is what you are after.
Other Speakers
This boomy sound when not too far from walls isn’t that uncommon and stuff rear facing ports should be in your arsenal if the speakers have to go anywhere near a wall (or worse still a corner).
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