Check phase of speaker connections and have you experimented with speaker placement, toe in, etc? Those are some fundamental things to check and get locked in up front initially.
Less than satisfying sound with non-audiophile recordings
This is my first post here, I'd very much appreciate some input.
I inherited some things from my father recently and combining what he had with what I had I to come up with the following:
Sony SCD-XA9000ES
BAT VK-300SE (with new matched set SOVTEK 6H30PI)
Wilson Watt Puppy 5.1
Audioquest DBS 36v interconnects between Sony and BAT
Transparent Reference 2158XL speaker cables between BAT and Wilsons
PS Audio Premier Power Plant Regenerator
With well recorded material like Chesky the sound is quite good with a wide natural soundstage but the problem is with everything else. I'm not talking about 'bad' recordings but just average ones where the sound is best described as very limited in dynamic range and also sounding as if it is coming from a narrow tube between the speakers. Pop music is somewhat tolerable and old Frank Sinatra recordings are downright unlistenable. Also there are times with vocals the singer is up front but with other tracks from the same album the vocals are so recessed they seem like they are being drowned out by the instruments. I can't imagine the sound engineer intended this as the end product.
It's just frustrating to have such a limited amount of music to enjoy with this system. I suppose with a system like this its revealing nature leads to this kind of situation but it's so extreme I'm lead to believe it's more than this and there is something more fundamentally wrong in the system. One clue in this regard is the Sony is no longer able to read the SACD layer of hybrid discs and every once in a great while it has a problem even reading regular CDs requiring me to reload them so they can be read. Unfortunately I don't have another player to swap out so I can test this. Also I don't know where I could send the Sony to be serviced.
That's my situation, any input would be appreciated.
I inherited some things from my father recently and combining what he had with what I had I to come up with the following:
Sony SCD-XA9000ES
BAT VK-300SE (with new matched set SOVTEK 6H30PI)
Wilson Watt Puppy 5.1
Audioquest DBS 36v interconnects between Sony and BAT
Transparent Reference 2158XL speaker cables between BAT and Wilsons
PS Audio Premier Power Plant Regenerator
With well recorded material like Chesky the sound is quite good with a wide natural soundstage but the problem is with everything else. I'm not talking about 'bad' recordings but just average ones where the sound is best described as very limited in dynamic range and also sounding as if it is coming from a narrow tube between the speakers. Pop music is somewhat tolerable and old Frank Sinatra recordings are downright unlistenable. Also there are times with vocals the singer is up front but with other tracks from the same album the vocals are so recessed they seem like they are being drowned out by the instruments. I can't imagine the sound engineer intended this as the end product.
It's just frustrating to have such a limited amount of music to enjoy with this system. I suppose with a system like this its revealing nature leads to this kind of situation but it's so extreme I'm lead to believe it's more than this and there is something more fundamentally wrong in the system. One clue in this regard is the Sony is no longer able to read the SACD layer of hybrid discs and every once in a great while it has a problem even reading regular CDs requiring me to reload them so they can be read. Unfortunately I don't have another player to swap out so I can test this. Also I don't know where I could send the Sony to be serviced.
That's my situation, any input would be appreciated.
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