Sound problem

[NLaudiophile]

Trying to make some adjustments with the sound. The clarity and clean wide stage is there without a doubt, but I'm getting lots of highs with a "tinny" and "echoey" sound, lacking bass thus lacking fullness and I've had a couple of people say this lately. I'm using the Electromotions. The problem is, I had the Energy RC-70s just prior, removed those and added the MLs, so everything else is the same. Having said that, I'm replacing the subwoofer, but would that cure my problem. It's disappointing, upgrading and not hearing that full sound.

 

[MrBT]

Possible solution to your problem may be acoustic treatment of your room.

 

[roberto]

Hola. Check the speakers polarity, red to red, and black to black. If you have balance in your receiver, move it to only one channel and listen. If you got the bass, then you have wrong polarity. Also, you could have where you are sitting, a room bass cancellation. Move your chair to listen where the bass is. Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsBUFCsyP4s&noredirect=1 Happy listening!

 

[amey01]

This sounds very much to me like a positioning problem. Try pulling them further away from all walls as an initial step and see what you get. There are plenty of threads on positioning here.

 

[edwinr]

The ESL's are very punchy. There's something else wrong. Like the others said, it could be positioning, but more likely a phasing issue.

 

[projectormovielover]

When I first had an Onkyo 607 paired up with some polk rti the bass was huge and rumbled my room. I went out and bought ML Source and put them in the system and found that alot of the mid bass was gone and had to turn it up loud to get them going. Placement will get them going good for sure but when I purchased a yaqin mc10l tube integrated for $550 things got really different. The bass was just pounding out them and the midrange was really full, it was like a wave of power sweeping across my room but I lost alot of the high frequency but it was a fair trade. After the tubes I realized that the logans are capable of exceptional realism and are so very sensitive and responsive to everything. I changed gear and cables and made the mistake of selling off the tubes. Even though my Anthem amp is great and can double down in the ohms its just not as high current as the tubes

Basically what you think your speakers are lacking is the what the components are lacking. A sub will not really cure any of this and placement will improve bass but only to a certain point

 

[Bevensee]

I'm with Roberto on this one. It sounds like rigth/left out of phase. Swap plus and minus on one of them (only one!) and let us know if gets better or worse.

 

[Bradh1]

I agree with the others. Check your phase, speaker placement ect. After doing this and you still have the problem then you may need to dig a little deeper. When I got my Montis last year there was a phase problem with them. I really only noticed this on low freq. (when the woofers where in play). In the high freq. everything sounded fine.

In the end I took the plate off of both Montis and found one of the woofers where wired out of phase. A quick change in the leads on the one that was out of phase fixed the problem.

I am not saying this is whats wrong with your speakers, but if everything checks out with your phase, ect then you might want to take a look. It sure beat packing them up and exchanging them.

Brad

 

[NLaudiophile]

I checked the wiring just to be sure and everything seemed fine. Having said that, I reversed them, testing one speaker, then the other and to be honest, I could not hear much difference, if any. I changed the reference level on the dynamic volume within audessy from -15dB to 0 and found the bass come back to life. But having said that, according to the AVR manual, it suggests for rock/pop music, set the reference to -15, jazz to -10, classical to -5 and movies....0.

Toeing them according to the flashlight method, noticeable difference, definite improvement, prob should have done that upon initial setup.

Back to the phasing issue, if I'm not hearing any difference, I'm wondering, is it possible the AVR is not powerful enough to deliver what the speakers require. Should I look into a seperate amp? If so, any suggestions, what's some important aspects to look for?

 

[jmschnur]

Do you have a disk that checks phasing?


J

 

[amey01]

This comment

The clarity and clean wide stage is there without a doubt,

doesn't sound like a phase problem.

Although worth checking all the same given what you say about the bass.

It is more likely pointing to a positioning problem.

 

[NLaudiophile]

Do you have a disk that checks phasing?


J

I didn't know such thing existed! Where can I find one? Having said that, I heard audessy would pick up on it, but I'm not certain on that.

 

[NLaudiophile]

So, I sent an email to the Onkyo company with a question regarding the ohm range on the Tx-NR818 AVR. Their response was:

"The TX NR818 Speaker Impedance is rated to handle 4 Ω - 16 Ω. 8 ohm 135 watts minimum continuous power per channel,
250 W (4 Ω, Front) All your speakers need to have the same ohms. If the ohms are different this can damage your receiver"

There are specs showing that the Electromotions can dip down to 1.6ohms. Would it be of my best interest to invest in a pre amp? Would this possible correct the "sound problem" I'm having?

 

[danvu]

Dont invest your money on a preamp yet. Put it on a separated quality power amp for the ESLs.

 

[jmschnur]

Stereophile has several CDS that include a phasing check . Their cd 3 test cd is very useful for stereo setup.

AIX has a blu ray : audio calibrations disc

That has a 5.1 and 7.1 phasing . I find this very useful for setup in a home theater.


Joel

 

[Hocky]

Turn off dynamic volume. The whole point of it is to squish dynamics.

 

[Bevensee]

I checked the wiring just to be sure and everything seemed fine. Having said that, I reversed them, testing one speaker, then the other and to be honest, I could not hear much difference, if any. I changed the reference level on the dynamic volume within audessy from -15dB to 0 and found the bass come back to life. But having said that, according to the AVR manual, it suggests for rock/pop music, set the reference to -15, jazz to -10, classical to -5 and movies....0.

Toeing them according to the flashlight method, noticeable difference, definite improvement, prob should have done that upon initial setup.

Back to the phasing issue, if I'm not hearing any difference, I'm wondering, is it possible the AVR is not powerful enough to deliver what the speakers require. Should I look into a separate amp? If so, any suggestions, what's some important aspects to look for?

When you tested this, did you run both speakers at the same time?

In case you didn't, please do. the absolute phase of the speakers is not important, but is the two speakers are out of phase, their bass output will cancel each other. With both speakers running, you should be able to hear a clear differences between in phase and out of phase.

 

[roberto]

Hola. Turn the Odyssey off. Perhaps it is cutting the bass out. Trust your ears! Do it by yourself all the adjustments!! Happy listening!

 

[NLaudiophile]

Well, I located some phase in/phase out tests, everything sounds fine.

So I turned off the dynamic volume and audyssey, hello bass and fullness. But, the volume drops, so I need to turn it up to just under half way just for a moderate listening level, is that a sacrifice or should I still try out a separate amp? I definitely need to try it! Like one guy said it here perfect(i believe it was Roberto)once you buy the speakers everything just spirals, upgrading to better components to get the potential from the speakers!!

Anyway, I thought the point of audyssey was to give you a fully calibrated sound, because it measures the sound in the room with seating positions?? The last receiver I purchased, was approx 15 yrs ago, certainly no calibrating programs on it. So I'm now just back into building a new system, reading and trying to learn as much as possible. Audyssey seemed to be wonderful, until I turned it off!!

Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions.

Next, I'm thinking about using in wall 8" Electromotion speakers( i could use 4 of these, 2 for surrounds and 2 rear)or just go with the electromotion surround (EM-FX2). Or to thriw a curve ball, anyone experiment with high fronts(id use the in wall speakers). Suggestions?

Thanks

 

[roberto]

Hola. Must receivers use a logarithmic volume control, this means that you can adjust the volume level at your most convenience level. The volume knob could be showing 12 or 1 o'clock position. Question here, do you listen any stress of the amplifier with this volume set? Do you have a distorted sound? If the answer is clean sound, perhaps the input sensitivity of your amp is too high, or you are applying a very low signal level . Does your DVD player has volume control? It should be set at 100% level. And I have to say it here... I do trust my ears instead a computer with a shi*** mic. I can sense many things that a mic and any software program will not, as an example: the feeling of the musician(s). The nuances of the music. We have a saying here in Costa Rica, when a musician(s) is playing nice, we say he or she is giving love!!! can you measure the Love? or hate? or the way of any kind of musical expression? Questions,...very difficult to answer, the truth for this is, that our ears are the final judge!!! Trust to them! Happy listening!