TO FAST. Work with the crossover. I added a subwoofer for lower end and the additional reinforcement of the lower tones smoothed out the upper mid band of my system without equalization, "a trick of the ear". Have you tried treating your room for better acoustics? Patience is everything in this hobby however so go slow and listen to the changes.
Holy Crap What have I done?
Ya know that scene in "Aladdin" where Abu the monkey touches the huge ruby of the forbidden treasure and everything goes to hell around them? Well, *that's* kinda what happened to me tonight.
I finally found a Marchand XM9 crossover at the right price from an honest seller, and it arrived tonight. I put it in line between my preamp and amp, and it did both what I wanted it to do and what I didn't want it to do: it improved the "slam" of the bottom end, but sucked all the air out of the music and my system went from a pretty high degree of "you are there" factor to realizing you're listening to music on a good stereo.
Admittedly, I haven't played with the crossover controls yet, but I'll be quite surprised if they can "bring the life back" to my system.
Any thoughts on how to get my system to give me that "I'm in the room with the musicians" feeling again with the crossover still in line? Maybe I need to go to an XM44, or some other brand of crossover?
I should mention I tried the crossover because my nOrh mini 9.0's only go down to about 65Hz -3dB with a really quick downturn to -10dB (around 55Hz at -10dB, if I remember my measurements correctly.) I was happy with my ACI Titan crossoved over at 85Hz, but had read that using a crossover to cut the lowest octave from the monitors would improve the midrange and imaging. In this case, it didn't, interstingly.
I'd sure appreciate whatever thoughts you all have on where to go next.
Howard
I finally found a Marchand XM9 crossover at the right price from an honest seller, and it arrived tonight. I put it in line between my preamp and amp, and it did both what I wanted it to do and what I didn't want it to do: it improved the "slam" of the bottom end, but sucked all the air out of the music and my system went from a pretty high degree of "you are there" factor to realizing you're listening to music on a good stereo.
Admittedly, I haven't played with the crossover controls yet, but I'll be quite surprised if they can "bring the life back" to my system.
Any thoughts on how to get my system to give me that "I'm in the room with the musicians" feeling again with the crossover still in line? Maybe I need to go to an XM44, or some other brand of crossover?
I should mention I tried the crossover because my nOrh mini 9.0's only go down to about 65Hz -3dB with a really quick downturn to -10dB (around 55Hz at -10dB, if I remember my measurements correctly.) I was happy with my ACI Titan crossoved over at 85Hz, but had read that using a crossover to cut the lowest octave from the monitors would improve the midrange and imaging. In this case, it didn't, interstingly.
I'd sure appreciate whatever thoughts you all have on where to go next.
Howard