Tapco S8 User Manual

Getting Started

The following steps will 

help you set up your 

monitor speakers quickly. 

Follow these steps for all 

the S•8 studio monitors in 

your system.

1.  Turn the INPUT LEVEL control on the rear panel all 

the way down.

2.  Set the HIGH FREQ and LOW FREQ switches to “0 

(NORMAL).”

3.  Turn the POWER switch OFF.

1.   Connect the line-level monitor signal from your 

mixer (or other signal source) to the INPUT jack on 

the S•8 Studio Monitor (XLR, 1/4-inch TRS, or RCA).

2.  Set the AC SELECT switch to the correct position for 

your country (115 VAC or 230 VAC).

3.  Connect the supplied AC power cord to the IEC 

socket on the back of the monitor. Plug the other 

end into an AC outlet properly confi gured with the 

correct voltage for the AC SELECT switch setting 

you have selected.

1.   Turn the POWER switch ON.

2.  Start your signal source (tape deck, CD, DAW, or 

whatever), but leave the master level control on 

your mixer down.

3.  Slowly turn up the INPUT LEVEL control on the S•8 to 

MAX (fully clockwise).

4.  Adjust the master volume on your mixer to a 

comfortably loud listening level. If the volume from 

the speakers gets really loud, really fast, try turning 

down the INPUT LEVEL control on the S•8s a bit to 

achieve a good balance of master volume control 

and loudness from the speaker.

Now that you have your monitors working, 

it’s time to hunker down and read the rest of 
this manual…especially the following:

Placement

An Extremely Important 

Note on S•8 Bass 

Response and Your 

Control Room

Your new S•8s achieve their best bass 

response in a room that’s optimized for bass 
reproduction. A lot of factors can conspire 
to thwart the S•8s’ extended low frequency, 
including room shape, room volume, and 
acoustical treatment.

This is not a cop-out or an apology. It’s 

plain old physics in action. Luckily, we’ve 
armed you with some compensating 
controls that you can use to optimize the 
frequency response of the speakers in your 
particular room. Consider the following:

When you put your S•8s in a corner or 

up against a wall, their bass characteristics 
change. The apparent loudness of the low 
frequencies increases when the monitors 
are placed close to a wall, and even more 
so when they are placed in a corner. 

If you have placed the speakers away 

from the walls and corners and you would 
like to hear a little more bass, try setting the 
LOW FREQ equalization switch to the +2 dB 
position to provide a gentle boost to the 
low frequencies (below 100 Hz). If it’s still 
not enough bass, try the +4 dB position to 
provide a little more bass boost.