Lack in harmonic richness

Thanks for all your responses. They are very insightful. What I exactly mean is that in comparison with the lower midrange/upper bass the midrange and upper midrange/treble are deprived from a certain richness in sound (= bloom). I hear enough bass and mid bass, it's even too much some times. But upper midrange and treble should sound rich and with plenty of "air". I'll experiment with different speaker positions first.

Chris

Dazzdax - Here's a suggestion related to the Parametric EQ. My experience suggests that the problem is not your equipment - It's very likely your room.

The fact that changing equipment doesn't change the outcome seems to support that. And my recent experience with Audissey MultiEQ has me rethinking a lot of what I thought I knew. I have yet to hear anything through my system that doesn't sound richer, fuller, more real and with better more stable imaging when put through the Audissey. Try out some room correction. You may be surprised...

T

The room/speaker interface is a cause of much audiophile dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, it isn't easy to cure the problem, as there are only so many things most of us can do or are prepared to do. I solved this exact dissatisfaction purely by accident. Some ten years ago, a classified ad appeared in my local newspaper for a pair of Infinity IRS Gammas at a ridiculously appealing price. I bought them because my then-current speakers irritated and fatigued me, and no amount of monkeying with positioning and electronics achieved much improvement. When I intially set up the Gammas, they were no better. But the Gammas have a user interface absent on almost all other speakers: Each of the five drivers has a level adjustment. After several hours of experimentation, I found what for me were the ideal settings for each driver's level (left and right speakers aren't identically set, by the way) and made diagrams to commemorate my preferred settings in case somebody played with them. The result for me was audio nirvana. Much of the source material I couldn't previously abide sounds compelling. The best material moves me to tears.

Interestingly, I've since had the system checked with a spectrum analyzer, and the frequency response is close to flat. In fact, I was unable to adjust the driver level settings to get a flatter response, only to shift the frequencies where the small deviations occur, with less-pleasing (to my ear) sonic results.

The settings I prefer are far from the centerline for most of the drivers, some well to the negative side and some well to the positive, others just off center. Small changes produce big (usually unpleasant) results.

Assuming that the centerline represents flat output in an anechoic chamber as measured by Infinity for manufacturing purposes, the adjustments I've made compensate for the impact of my room and its furnishings on the speakers' frequency response. My experience suggests that the room in which accurate speakers are placed can at best be neutral but more likely denegrate performance. Infinity's solution was to create an intuitive way of letting the listener compensate. If drivers cannot be adjusted, as is most commonly the case for most speakers, then the room has to be modified, a far more complicated procedure, or equalization needs to be applied, a procedure that has its own weaknesses from my experience, in that a noticeable veiling of detail results.

Chris - what you seem to be describing is not a problem "thin or threadbare" but a lack of "air" or an overly "dry" sound. Remember your upper midrange is probably second to none - it probably decays near instantly anbeing very "panel fast" with none of the nasty resonances that are commonly found in other heavier cone speakers.

See this for a good definition of speaker qualitative terms.

Half the problem in audio is getting on the same page with descriptive terms.

If you are not getting enough "air" or "ambience" then you probably have a room and placement problem.

Panels tend to beam (although A-1s are curved and will be less "beamy"). Your previous speaker also tended towards a narrower dispersion. Both could be reasonably be expected to give you a tendency towards less "air" and a "drier" sound.

As some have suggested an EQ boost in upper mid treble or an amp with a high output impedance (tube) will bloom more in the upper midrange/treble (anywhere that impedance rises most).

Alternatively, try getting the speakers to reflect a bit more off the side walls in order to enhance the reverberant (ambient) sound.

Good luck!