Auralex MoPAD-XL

First of all, let me begin by saying to everyone out there complaining about the price of these do you expect to have good sounding equipment by being cheap? Do you purchase a $30 microphone and expect to record a symphony? Like serious. It's $25. Geez. If you have good monitors and plan on getting the most out of them. Hopefully you paid a lot more for your speakers.Now on to the review...these things work. And they work well..The picture is kind of deceiving. You actually get 8 different pieces in the box.,Not 2 as shown in the picture. You get two top halves and two bottom half for each speakers. 4 pieces per speaker. You can use these pieces wisely to adjust the angle of your speakers to aim at your ear level. You can take the top halfs off which will aim the speakers at an extreme downward angle. Or you can leave the top half on and have your speakers level at no angle, a slightly downward angle, a slight upward angle, or use the foam facing backwards for an extreme upward angle.These adjustments can be critical for monitoring as every little bit towards getting the best SQ you can achieve.I own a pair or KRK rokit 5 G2s which I have been using for about 2 years now. I usually just have them on a desk and I had gotten use to the rattling because I was ignorant to how much that affects SQ and how it was making me harder to mix. After getting these pads I now wish I would have gotten them 2 years ago!! My soundstage completely opened up, i can now hear tighter more precise bass. Even small little details stand out more. I went back and mixed down a couple old songs again and they now sound even better than ever. They also do their true job of eliminating rattle perfectly. My desk doesn't shake at all! It's a completely new sounding experience for me now. These little pads are the truth and I would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone with a home studio.Please read this and spend the extra money on these. You won't regret it and they look really professional.

Love having these on top of my stands. Helps to angle speakers, makes them sound a bit better, and keeps you from scratching the bottom

These may seem like cheap pieces of foam that would cost [...] at most. Maybe they are...but they are not like any 'ol foam you might find. I am a musician with a good set of ears and a very good system that is detailed from the mid range down to start with. I found that since they do isolate tones (specs are included that detail which and how much) they give you a sense of what these frequencies do for the music when you can hear them together but in more separate form. The analogy would be in viewing a good photograph with a strong shadow tone that is rich but just one solid tone versus a better print that would show this strong shadow with 3 separate tones very close together. So instead of just saying they isolate and reduce vibration would be selling them a bit short. They will not make your speakers better than they are but what they do provide will be represented more accurately. I think it depends also of what you are expecting. As far as taking away obvious buzzing or oscillating lower bass from counter tops etc. is fairly a given. They do not isolate 100%. To do this takes more sophisticated material. So you may hear obvious improvement immediately or it make take some time to sit with the sound. If you want miracles to happen while running around with music in the background, this is not the type of product you want unless you are trying to get rid of some rattles which they may or may not do depending on what frequency is causing this and how much....and in which recording. As in all recordings some will reveal this stuff and others won't. In my judgment, these are meant to lift the speakers off the surface. To do this they don't have to cover every little bit of your speaker cabinet. I have large Dahlquist speakers that are about 2 inches wider than these platforms and hang over the back about 6 inches. They are stable. I have them tilting the 4 degrees downward since they are so high. To provide different angles depends on how you place the platforms. There are those that will hear no difference. This difference may be there or they may have a situation that just doesn't have too much oscillating stuff going on but if you are the type that appreciates this kind of detail you may be pleasantly surprised. But you need to give them a chance. I needed to sit back a bit for a couple of weeks to hear this "tuning" that I speak of. I wrote this not to be too detailed here but to offer an opposing view to the person who sent them back seeing them as cheep pieces of foam. These are fairly new products in their lineup but cheaper. Before these they had (and still do) basically what seems to be what these are but split in half. Therefore I would have had to buy two pair and this would cost twice as much. [...] and I could experiment but at 100...this would have been too much. I am glad I had the opportunity. Made an important difference to me. Again, you may not get quite the separation of tones I hear because I have these fancy speakers but it would seem that less of quality would benefit. And lastly because the lower tones are more clear the upper mid and high frequencies sound better to but it is the bass area of tones that are key here. Amazon is good on returns so in my mind this is worth the risk but check this out more specifically before you buy.

What makes the Auralex a better choice for some people is the option to angle your monitors if using the pads raise the tweeters above ear level. I use a metered desk and the 8 degree angle works perfect not only for coupling my monitors but also for angling the tweeters down at my ears. Sure they seem expensive, but its manufactured for different applications. You can angle the pads with included foam inserts to either point your monitors 4-8 degrees up or down.I'm listening to all my favorite dance mixes on my ADAM A7X Monitors with the Mopads and now i hear the sub bass lines 80% better. The pitches are actually discernible now.Also, The A7X monitors fit PERFECTLY on the Mopads. For the aesthetics alone, this was by far worth the money.