What speaker cables are you using?Stop. Just stop.
mystery muffled mids
I have a year-old setup I enjoy very much. B&W D3 805s and Hegel H590. Sound is really great. Imagining fantastic. every second with it is pleasure until I try to play classic rock. Anything by Led Zeppelin sounds like someone has smushed the sound and it lost the mid range, imagining disappears. I tried playing louder but live with too many people around to be able to do that constantly. And it did not improve anything noticably.
I normally stream from Tidal via Audirvana. Anything by Bill Frisell, for instance, sounds phenomenal. You feel you can grab the instrument from the air. I mention this since he uses similar instruments to Zeppelin. Bowie's stuff sounds awful, as does Queen. I know they should sound better. Kind of Blue is fantastic. Gaucho, Sea Change, Elephunk, Wildfloflowers, Know what I mean? -- all great. To a friend, I said that this means bad recordings sound bad. The friend said that's not it. what do you say? How can I improve the sound? thank you in advance.
I normally stream from Tidal via Audirvana. Anything by Bill Frisell, for instance, sounds phenomenal. You feel you can grab the instrument from the air. I mention this since he uses similar instruments to Zeppelin. Bowie's stuff sounds awful, as does Queen. I know they should sound better. Kind of Blue is fantastic. Gaucho, Sea Change, Elephunk, Wildfloflowers, Know what I mean? -- all great. To a friend, I said that this means bad recordings sound bad. The friend said that's not it. what do you say? How can I improve the sound? thank you in advance.
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- 39 posts total
@gmercer - don't know if you're just trolling, but I will explain why I asked in case you are actually just ignorant, and also for the sake of the OP and others in this thread. The OP has a great amp and speakers, truly excellent stuff in fact. He/she does not need to change those, at least for the sake of quality. Changes in his/her price range would mostly be a lateral move, at best. Tidal, although not as good as Qobuz, should not inherently have "bad mids." So, by process of elimination, there are a few variables left that could be causing the OP's issues: speaker cables, power issues (bad power coming into house/room, limiting/missing power filter or conditioner, etc.), or room interactions (no ICs, so not a consideration). For simplicities sake I asked only about the speaker cables. |
OP, as I said, that list was for your sake, too. I would also consider the stand, isolation, and/or coupling you have for your speakers. If you just have your speakers sitting on a stand or shelf, without coupling them to a good stand or alternatively isolating them from the stand, then this could be your issue. Without isolation or coupling, your speakers will audibly vibrate on their placed surface, often times muddling up the mids, especially. This makes sense that you notice it more with rock, because the mid/bass driver will be moving more, and causing more vibration. GL |
petar, I am not sure what "muffled mids" means. If there is a peak centered on 300 Hz you will get "muddy" or "thick" midrange. If there is a dip centered at 5000 Hz you will get dull midrange. Both issues can be the result of room acoustics and/or speaker issues. I doubt it would be elsewhere in the system. Speaker issues can include amplifier matching problems. The only sure way to figure this out is to get a calibrated mic and a frequency response measurement program. Then you will be able to see the problem and determine if room treat, speaker adjustment etc. are working. Another way to deal with it is a room control unit. It will come with the mic and measurement program and the ability to EQ your system digitally without any ill effect. This is a great unit, https://www.deqx.com/products/hdp-5/ DEQX also makes a less expensive unit that will also do everything you need. Once you have your system corrected everything will sound better. |
- 39 posts total