Help wanted: Bass!

More suggestions, gosh this is great – thanks all!

Some quick hitters:

I conferred with CJ was told that phase inversion is necessary; it’s the configuration I’ve been running though - check.

Connections are secure – check.

***Speaker cable length….hmmm, maybe a bit of a problem here. For aesthetic purposes (again, this is my living room and not my hi-fi room) my electronics are on one side of the room and the speakers centered in the room. Because of this arrangement, I’ve got two 20’ bi-wire runs of Van den Hul Teatrack hybrid cabling. Kensington SE’s are 8 ohms. Atmasphere: Think I’m losing much here?***

RBP, fellow fan of CJ!! Thank you so much for sharing your CJ experiences for my benefit! Tube rolling is something I’ve never done (always used CJ stock tubes) but will get to. Should be an interesting endeavor, thanks for passing along the characteristics of those you’ve dabbled with. Cabeling? Though I was good there with Stealth PGS IC’s and Van Den Hul to the speakers but I’ll review.

Will look into the fuse suggestion as well – I would have never thought they could make a noticeable difference.

Grateful for all the suggestions, the solution is certainly within!
RB

rbschauman

Did you see this link I gave you before to try, you should.
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/jeffreybehr/media/C-j%20equipment/PremierElevenoutputwiring1150_cmprsd.jpg.html

Cheers George

Three things to try:

1. Pull out the power conditioner (straight from the wall or a simple power strip was best for me). See if the bottoms come forward.
2. Try lamp cord or home depot extension cord (twisted wires under the insulation) to see if the sound is warmer (mine was).
3. Clean all your contacts (solved poor sound several times for me)
   

I conferred with CJ was told that phase inversion is necessary; it’s the configuration I’ve been running though - check.

Connections are secure – check.

***Speaker cable length….hmmm, maybe a bit of a problem here. For aesthetic purposes (again, this is my living room and not my hi-fi room) my electronics are on one side of the room and the speakers centered in the room. Because of this arrangement, I’ve got two 20’ bi-wire runs of Van den Hul Teatrack hybrid cabling. Kensington SE’s are 8 ohms. Atmasphere: Think I’m losing much here?***

To answer the question- yes. Not only are you loosing bass impact, you are loosing resolution. You'll find it easier to make out vocals if you can shorten up the speaker cables.

(this BTW is why balanced interconnect cables are so handy in a home environment as they can be run very long distances without degradation, allowing for short speaker cables; a topic for a different thread)

However, I was not talking about absolute phase with my phase comment. Phase inversion is something an amplifier might do (our amps are non-phase-inverting) but its possible to hook one amp in phase and the other out of phase by accidentally getting one speaker cable hooked up wrong.

When this happens the woofers are fighting each other- you get cancellation in the bass frequencies and so no bass impact. That is why I suggested changing the phase (reversing red for black) on **one speaker only** to test to see if this is the case. Since you have not done so, I suggest you try it and see what difference you hear!

Change out the tubes. I used EI KT90 back when i had the 12s.

If it is a lack of bass impact and not room related suckout, the output tubes made the amps sound as if it gained another 50w of power control and drive over ANY other type output tube, over NOS Gec kt88, Tungsol 6550's.

There is no point taking about tonals of these lusher sounding tubes being better as the bass is the most critical issue you have. Other suggested tweaks will improve resolution, room acoustics but not improving the bass energy which this amp lacks.

The fuses in the amp do not have any audiophile equivalents.