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Post by macca on Jul 2, 2021 15:48:12 GMT
God knows I've had some terrible ones and plenty that were just 'meh' in my time so I should know what I'm talking about. I posted this on AoS a while back to resounding silence so resumably everyone agreed or just didn't care, but I run it up the flagpole here anyway and see if it it dings:
Reasons why a system may sound poor: - pretty much never due to the wrong cables, noise on the mains or a lack of 'faith-based tweaks' - almost always down to one of the following:
1) the speakers are poorly engineered - possibly 'designed by ear' or simply not up to the job (e.g small two-way speakers used at high levels and run into distortion).
2) the amplifier is unsuitable - not capable of handling the speaker impedance/reactance load, or does not have enough power and is running in clipping
3) Impedance mis-match between components
4) Gain staging is sub-optimal resulting in clipping on the amplifier input
5) mains power 'cleaning' devices, surge suppression devices etc limiting amplifier's ability to supply power/current.
6) use of 'boutique' components that have audible intermodulation distortion
7) Turntable used as source - badly set up, or just crap to begin with, or stylus past its best but not at the stage yet where it has become so worn it is obvious.
Not an exhaustive list just off the top of my head. I've had all of these issues personally at one time or another. Some multiple times and on at least one occasion all at the same time...
Add to it if you want. Or say it's bollox. Whatever.
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Post by antonio on Jul 2, 2021 16:45:45 GMT
Well if no one as replied to your previous post on AoS, let me be the first. I really cannot remember having a bad sounding system, although it did take me quite a while to get my Epos ES14's sounding as good as they did in a previous property. I bought the property with the hifi in mind and thought I'd get the speakers firing down the room, I didn't have much experience then, but some how I could not get away from too much bass, in went the foam bungs, not enough bass, then only half filled the port, probably with a old pair of socks, it still was not quite right and moved to firing across the room with the bungs in which was better. I will say it stayed like that for sometime, but I did move the system around again and the speakers were firing down the room again, I forget now what I did, but the system stayed like that until we moved and I know I did not have the bungs in, finding without far more natural. I notice you mention bad mains, well is it that or is it you, for some reason not enjoying the music, I truly don't know. I will say if listening later in the evening, systems can often sound better, so maybe it is the mains. In the past I've usually gone and dem'ed equipment before buying, or at least heard it somewhere so I've got a good idea of what I'm getting, only more recently have I purchased blind, and then it has always been an item that has been well received. Your obviously not talking bollox, you know what you've heard, and what has corrected it, lets hope other will put their experience's down here so we can all learn a little.
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,063
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 3, 2021 9:37:00 GMT
God knows I've had some terrible ones and plenty that were just 'meh' in my time so I should know what I'm talking about. I posted this on AoS a while back to resounding silence so resumably everyone agreed or just didn't care, but I run it up the flagpole here anyway and see if it it dings: Reasons why a system may sound poor: - pretty much never due to the wrong cables, noise on the mains or a lack of 'faith-based tweaks' - almost always down to one of the following: WHAT!!!! C'mon macca, i know you are a devout A/B blind testing type of guy, but you can't tell me you haven't thrown a pair of cables in to the system and they've crippled it? Seriously?? I've done that loads, hence the obsession! You've had cables that caused midband distortion? |
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Post by misterc on Jul 3, 2021 10:47:27 GMT
Some good points there Martin
In our experiance the biggest issue of 'naff sounds' speakers far to big form the room/ listen space wholley inappropriate for a quality audio system. Next the amp/speaker mis match, closely folled by the rats nest of wiring, large power drawing devices placed last on a power strip, smps from set top boxes, routers etc in close proximity to audio system.
Furishings with hard surfaces, wooden floord with no rugs, seating to close to the rear wall generating reflections, mirrors, paintings behind glass, sofas obscurring speaker drivers, listening in a room with a TV screen between the speakers, also having far to much junk in the room really doesn't help matters at all.
They are quite a few more however these are the most common ones we have found over the years.
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Post by macca on Jul 3, 2021 12:41:01 GMT
God knows I've had some terrible ones and plenty that were just 'meh' in my time so I should know what I'm talking about. I posted this on AoS a while back to resounding silence so resumably everyone agreed or just didn't care, but I run it up the flagpole here anyway and see if it it dings: Reasons why a system may sound poor: - pretty much never due to the wrong cables, noise on the mains or a lack of 'faith-based tweaks' - almost always down to one of the following: WHAT!!!! C'mon macca , i know you are a devout A/B blind testing type of guy, but you can't tell me you haven't thrown a pair of cables in to the system and they've crippled it? Seriously?? I've done that loads, hence the obsession! You've had cables that caused midband distortion? No, never had a system 'crippled' by cables. That distortion thing you had to combine a particular speaker cable with a particular interconnect. That's the only time I've come across that in 30 plus years. Still intrigues me as to what causes that. Maybe we could get Mr C to test it? |
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Post by macca on Jul 3, 2021 12:45:56 GMT
Some good points there Martin
In our experiance the biggest issue of 'naff sounds' speakers far to big form the room/ listen space wholley inappropriate for a quality audio system. Next the amp/speaker mis match, closely folled by the rats nest of wiring, large power drawing devices placed last on a power strip, smps from set top boxes, routers etc in close proximity to audio system.
Furishings with hard surfaces, wooden floord with no rugs, seating to close to the rear wall generating reflections, mirrors, paintings behind glass, sofas obscurring speaker drivers, listening in a room with a TV screen between the speakers, also having far to much junk in the room really doesn't help matters at all.
They are quite a few more however these are the most common ones we have found over the years.
yes agree with all of those, Cable dressing matters more than people think, you still see appalling rat's nests behind really expensive systems. Not that hard to get the power cables a few inches away from the signal cables with a bit of thought. Having stuff between the speakers is overlooked too, you see that loads. Although in some rooms there's no real alternative I suppose. |
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Post by antonio on Jul 4, 2021 0:19:26 GMT
I agree with everything that's been said  |
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Post by macca on Jul 4, 2021 7:34:59 GMT
My point is that there seems to be a tendency these days to immediately ascribe sound quality problems to some exotic/unlikely cause, like mains noise, jitter, RFI, or vibration, and then spend a fortune chasing a solution.
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,063
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 4, 2021 7:54:40 GMT
My point is that there seems to be a tendency these days to immediately ascribe sound quality problems to some exotic/unlikely cause, like mains noise, jitter, RFI, or vibration, and then spend a fortune chasing a solution. That's an astute observation. Lots of folks trying to "fix" things that aren't the problem |
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Post by macca on Jul 4, 2021 9:35:23 GMT
I spent decades chasing my tail because I didn't understand the amplifier/loudspeaker relationship.
I had a good sounding system with little Mission speakers but when I moved here they were just lost in the room. So I bought some big Celestions.
I was using a Cambridge P70 amp but there was no bass off these massive speakers that had useful response down to 20 Hz. Couldn't figure it out. What do you do when there's no bass? Turn the volume up! Did that, blew a fuse on the amplifier.
So I bought a big Rotel amp, brand new, top of the range. It didn't blow fuses but the bass was muddy and there was no top end. Just a crap amplifier, right? So I replaced that with Linn pre-power which was considerably better but I still wasn't happy with the sound. Meanwhile a friend needed an amp so I took the Rotel round to his thinking well a loan of a crap amp is better than no amp at all.
Not a fancy system, just budget Sony CD player and little Ruark speakers. But the sound quality when we put the Rotel in was excellent, so much so that he bought it from me on the spot. Did I learn my lesson? Nope. I'd go round to his and every time that system sounded great and it had cost him pennies compared to what I had spent just to be dissatisfied.
Went to a dealer and he said 'Yeah it's your cables' so I dumped a load of money I didn't have on Audioquest interconnects and speaker cable. That did jack sh#t to solve the problem so I turned to the source and bought about a million CD players, all to no avail.
In the end I sold the big Celestions thinking they must be the problem. Which in a way they were, it was just I completely underestimated what was required to drive them properly. The magazine reviewer said 'A 50 watt amp is sufficient' and the Rotel was 65 watts, the Linn was 50 watts, so what was the problem?
Really wish I had known then what I know now, and really wish that I had known then that the reviewer and the dealer also knew absolutely F#ck-all.
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Post by antonio on Jul 4, 2021 13:27:44 GMT
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Post by macca on Jul 4, 2021 14:32:59 GMT
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Post by misterc on Jul 4, 2021 14:44:15 GMT
Ruark's, humm only rememeber the Broadswords trully a non enity sound, made Harbeth's sound busy, a bass inductor the size of my first around 84dB sensitivity 200 real watts struggle to give them life 
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,063
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 4, 2021 17:14:16 GMT
Yup, and the Talismans. They were ok.... slightly warmer sounding, but then my system was loads different back then. |
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Post by macca on Jul 4, 2021 19:53:16 GMT
The Templars suit my mate's room as it's small and square, they have a bit more body to them than a miniature standmounter, but not enough to get the bass nodes going. And you can put them up close to the wall.
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,063
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 4, 2021 20:10:20 GMT
The Templars suit my mate's room as it's small and square, they have a bit more body to them than a miniature standmounter, but not enough to get the bass nodes going. And you can put them up close to the wall. Yeah, very listenable too. |
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Post by sq225917 on Jul 4, 2021 21:22:51 GMT
Mostly it's been speakers mismatched to room or amps mismatched to speakers, apart from cart arm mismatched that's pretty much it for me. The other stuff pales into insignificance in comparison
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Post by antonio on Jul 5, 2021 0:52:35 GMT
For some reason I'm just getting a blank ebay page! |
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Post by antonio on Jul 5, 2021 0:58:42 GMT
Ruark's, humm only rememeber the Broadswords trully a non enity sound, made Harbeth's sound busy, a bass inductor the size of my first around 84dB sensitivity 200 real watts struggle to give them life
I enjoyed hearing the Broadswords, about £650 at the time I purchased my ES14's which were £299, and strangely enough I had a pair on my watch list not all that long ago |
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