Songs Faber Olympica III

Yes,the cones/spikes should be different lengths as you stated.Shorter ones rear and longer ones front. Seems odd you received all the same length seeing the speakers were designed to upslope rearward...

chipcarterdc... Congrats on your purchase.I own them and without a doubt... the Olympica III’s are a truly wonderful speaker system.

My setup was easy. I pulled them out from the front and sidewalls in my space and have the ports facing inward. Why inward? That’s just where I started and have seen no need to face them outward. I have them positioned about eight feet from the front wall behind the speakers and about six feet from the sides.This gives them plenty of room to breath. Of course,if you have them set-up close to the sidewalls, I would be inclined to face the ports inward so as to not have the bass energy inner acting with side wall room boundaries. Sound pressure effects to close to any boundary can cause non-musical bass response. "Experiment in your space for sure."

For my setup I used a laser for the utmost in precise positioning from the speakers to my listening chair/ears. Having the speakers the exact same distance from your ears will pay off big time,but not absolutely mandatory,it seems the III’s are not real fussy in this regard as some speakers can be...but do experiment,its worth the hassle. When they are dialed in properly its easy to know... by the superb image and sound-staging,which,by the way,the SF III’s are champs at. I also use the spikes[as per designed ] on concrete flooring,mandatory for best sound. Also, I recommend bi-wiring them if at all possible. I have tried jumpers and imho, bi-wiring is the way to go.

Above all else...have fun.

PS  Another great review!

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/sonus_faber_olympica_iii.htm

That’s what I would do... 4 ohm to the low/bass connectors and 8 ohm to the mid/hi. I believe the III’s dip down to near 2.6 ohm at 103 hz. So from what I gather,they are more of a nominal 3 ohm load. More current into lows connected that way. Of course,nothing is written in stone...

Also... When I was using a single run of cable to the III's I connected the cables to the low connectors and jumped to the mid/highs. This way seemed to let the speakers give a much more musical presentation overall.  The other way around thinned the sound out a bit,at least with my system. ymmv

chipcarterdc said ... "Question: what would happen if I connected the low/bass input to the 2ohm taps rather than the 4ohm, and then either left the high input connected to the 8ohm or moved it down to the 4ohm?
By "what would happen," I mean both "what would one expect to hear" and "am I going to blow something up if I do this"?"


Try it out and see what the outcome is,it may sound better, or worse,only you and your ears can be the judge.. I do not think anything will blow up as you say...as long as you do not put the amp into clipping... I would think everything would be fine.

Being to polite I believe could be a system dependent thing. While listening at low volume settings with my III’s everything I hear at a louder volume’s is also there at lower volumes...just not as loud of course. Low loudness levels for me, at least, are just plain superb with the musical spectrum refined and preserved. Sonus faber claims a sensitivity of 90db/w/m but I believe it is closer to 87db/w/m from a review I read. Combine that with an average Impedance of 3 ohms( dipping to 1.7) and it’s easy to see they like a bit of juice to get them going...