Need help - system performance


First I'll explain my system. Have a pair of Martin Logan SL3's (10" woofer with approx 4' esl panel), a pair of Parasound HCA1000A amps at 125 wpc each, a Parasound pld1100 line drive stereo preamp, a Pioneer Elite DV-05 dvd player,IXOS silver series interconnects (1/2 to 1 meter)and 12 gauge fine stranded monster cable MC-1 which has just an outer thick plastic jacket (16' speaker cables).

I have the amps horizontally bi-amped ( 1 amp for lows & 1 amp for highs). The speakers were bought used, are two years old, in mint condition, and were cared for. the amps & preamp were bought new and now have about 15-20 hours on them as well as all cables. DVD/CD player is connected to the direct input on preamp. polarity is correct on all terminations.

This is my sonic situation, when playing my favorite cd's, (you know the ones which have those exceptional quality recordings)the system sounds overall very good and bright. When watching dvd movies, it also sounds very good. When listening to most cd's however it appears to be lacking a little something!!!

It seams if the music be played consists of single or separable instruments, i.e. single guitars, horns or voices, the esl panels sound wonderful, but when its compounded such as rock and roll or the complete frequency spectrum, it seams to lack midrange, clarity, and sound stage. the 10" low end drivers seam to deliver a punchy bottom at times and muddy at others. The lower the volume the worse the condition. As far as listening to music from the tuner, well it sounds like absolute s....t. I have experimented with speaker placement with basically no differences. I have NOT tried to vertical biamp or drive the the amps as monoblocks.

I had a limited budget and spent approx 4K so far. I thought I did all the right research and made the right choices considering my budget. So what happening??

I tend to think the inexpensive speaker cables (bought from circuit city) could be causing the problem but I cant bring myself to spend a $1000.00 to proove it without talking to someone who knows more about it first.

Need intelligent help and recommendations....Steve Rounds
sfrounds

Showing 1 response by sean

I agree with Abstract. Keeping the signal ( and the reactance ) from the ESL panel seperate from the signal ( and reactance ) from the woofers is probably MUCH better than trying to force one amplifier channel to deal with both. As such, i sincerely doubt that those amps would like to see a load of that nature when bridged ( monoblock ).

Not being overtly familiar with Logan's, i would look into what other owners of such speakers suggest. After all, who knows better than someone that HAS "been there, done that" ??? Play with speaker placement as much as is humanly possible and then spike them in place.

As to speaker cables, be careful with what you use. At that length, various designs begin to work and look ( electrically ) MUCH better than others. Cables with very high capacitance ( Goertz, etc...) or high inductance ( like the Monster that you're using ) WILL become very noticeable "tone controls" and could even cause amplifier instability if not dealt with properly. This is besides the fact that they could become "long wire antennas" for nearby transmitters and stray RF in the area. Something that makes use of a network or at least uses some type of braiding / twisted pairs / small multiple conductors in a litz configuration, etc... would also be worth checking into.

Since you're using E-stat's, try reading the "articles" section in Pass Lab's website. Look for an article entitled "speaker cables: Science or Snake Oil". Nelson did some testing of various speaker cables a LONG time ago ( 1980 ) using his old Dayton Wright e-stat's as a reference. I think that you'll find it pretty educational to say the least. As he states, each system is different and heavy gauge is NOT always best. Below is a direct link to the specific article for your convenience. Hope this helps... Sean
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http://www.passlabs.com/articles/spkrcabl.htm