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  3. 1094570235

Sound is too thin. What to upgrade, add or remove?

Need your advise - please have a look at my system below (click on the system link). Just in the past couple of months or so it seems, my setup started to sound way too thin in my ears. It feels as though the bottom-end is just not enough anymore. But I as you can see from the pictures, I try to stay on the minimulist side of things. The aesthetics are very important as well (WAF). I can't really have too much exposed gear (WAF). What can I do to boost the overall sonics of this system without adding a sub? How much more can a power conditioner add? What about replacing the power tubes, IC's and adding a DAC? or should I switch to a different amp - like a Gamut (SS) 200/wcp? What other push-pull (100 wpc or more) quality tube amps are out there? My budget is $2K - $3K plus the value of current amp if I were to swap it out.

I really appreciate your comments. Thank you.

Jewel
128x128jewel_hasan
czapp's avatar
czapp
126 posts
 
Hi Jewel
You have a wonderful system, and a beautiful apartment, and unfortunately the two don't usually work together. I have Kharma's in a dedicated listening room, and not until I really started to treat the room did they reach their potential. I don't think that you want to start putting panels all over your living room.
I agree with other suggestions that pulling the speakers out a bit might help the frequency balance. You might want to try some isolation devices that have more of a softening/ damping effect - like vibrapods. The other thing is some tube rolling - maybe some warm Telefunkens might help. And lastly, I would lose the PS Audio outlet. That might be thinning things out.
Good Luck
Carl
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,145 posts
 
Given the WAF issues regarding speaker placement and room treatments, this is what you really need.
jewel_hasan's avatar
jewel_hasan OP
98 posts
 
a quick update: just got home from work and checked the distance between the speakers (woofer-to-woofer). I was way off, it is close to 10-feet - way too much i think. Here are the corrective actions I've taken thus far: I pulled the speakers out so they sit 4-ft away from back wall; narrowed the in-betweend distance to 8-ft so they overlap the credenza slightly; moved the rug around, it is now sitting a 1.5 ft in front of both speakers. I hear some changes but let me continue listening for a while and try out different recordings. Will update shorty.

Again, thanks a bunch...
viggen
838 posts
 
I think you need atleast 4 ft from backwall and atleast 4 ft from the drawer thing in the middle. These are probably mentioned but just wanted to repeat for the sake of being repetitive.

I definitely agree with moving the preamp off the cd player too. Also, check all your wires, chords and interconnects. make sure the digital wires, analog cables, and powercords are not running parallel against each other.
warnerwh
539 posts
 
There are some room treatments available that look nice. Room treatment is a huge step up in a room like that. Even just a couple of panels and maybe two bass traps if possible. At minimum you should research room acoustics. Go to the room simulator at the Rives Audio site. You can put in the dimensions of your room and it'll give you a rough idea where the least amount of room modes will affect your system regarding speaker placement/seating position.
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