Pete, I'm going through the same situation. This advice only goes if you're grooving with your Thiels, but missing the "room filling impact without boom." Get yourself a PAIR (two is better than one in the sub department. Power plus room nulls avoided)of subs. You'll get plenty of feedback on different subwoofer possibilities. I'm waiting on delivery of two JamesEMB1500s that I will put on two Sistrum 101 platorms; also on order. That 30 foot wall is great for your bass when you have your system on the short wall. This is probably the most cost effective way to achieve what you want and maintain the (if you love it) Thiel sound. With two subs you're going to move a lot of air. In this case, IMHO, I feel bigger is better peace, warren :-) |
I recommend Wilson Alexandria X-2 or X-1 Grand Slam depending on your budget. It should get you where you want to go. Add a pair of Wilson XS subwoofers if you really want to fill out that bottom end. |
You may want to listen to some vandersteen 5a or quatros depending on your buget very much the same sound as Thiels. I had the same bass issues now I have the 5a couldn't be happer. The trick is they have there own powered subs that are phase correct in the speakers. This produces tons of fast bass and also provides a natural by amping so if you run high end amps they just need to consentrate on the mids and highs. I have found subs never really work out well they just don't match the speakers 100% or the volume is not consistant. The Vandersteens also have a very advanced crossover that gets tuned to the room and your equipnment so you can alwas tweek the bass for more or less bass. |
How do you spell D-U-N-L-A-V-Y ?!? |
You want vocals? Jazz? Check out quality electrostatic speakers from Soundlab and Quad. |
i've gotta say it. a mac pre and mcd 205 will nail realistic bass in any average size room with the thiels you have. you won't give up midrange to get it either. the musical fidelity plays....the mac controls |
Bass, Bass, Bass, Bass and Bass and more Bass.
Get three subs (three is better than two in the sub department) and if it's not enough rip the tweeter and put a woofer in it's place.
Ok, we want bass, but the bass that exist in the music, not coloration. We dont need speakers that play below the 30 Hz, instruments dont go there, unless you hear organ music. Even if your speakers go to 25 Hz 0 dB, thoes your room has space to give this frequencies.
I'm not an adept of a sub, if you want better bass change your speakers, dont buy a sub. Inplementing a sub in a audio room is difficult, and most of the time the results are only satisfatory.
The question is - What do you want? Better bass; or as someone put it "room filling impact without boom."
Warrenh, could you please explain the concept - Power plus room nulls avoided - when two subs are used. |
Seurat, just got home from a wonderful sushi dinner celebrating a very long, tedious house closing. I'm exhausted. I should have thrown a comma in there, but a couple of killer subs will add the oomph (power) to move the air and avoid the nulls--cancellations due to room paramters and placement of the sub. Get on Audioasylum and plug into nulls and do your homework. I'm beat.
peace,
warren :-) |
I appreciate all of the usefull help. I am looking to upgrade my preamp and CD player and am looking at the Mac C200 or C46(among others). As for CD I am less sure but was not planning on a Mac CD player. My experience with subs nasn't been the best. Never heard a well integrated sound. So i am mainly interested in input on speakers. Curious about what the new Thiel 3.7's will bring to the table.The 501's definetly have more weight then the MF 308 amp they replaced so maybe a Mac amp would be a big upgrade. |
I meant to say Mac preamp would be an upgrade. |
Pete, put your speakers on the short wall, as well. That will work with your subs if you go that way. I used to own a pair of CS1.5s. Let's face it: how much air can you move in a room your size with a 6.5 woofer? It has been my experience two subs each placed near your Thiels should give your room what it needs. Much less expensive option than some of the suggestions. Why did prgrammergeek recommend the 5a, besides being drop dead killer speakers? They utilize subwoofers. Happy listening. |
any input on preamp and CD player upgrades? |
Vandersteen Quatros would be perfect. Those or a used pair of Model 5s. |
Warrenh we have something in common, I'm a sushi fan too.
Sound waves are mechanical waves because they need a medium to propagate their interaction. The main properties of sound fields can be deduced from the basic association that the perfect gas is an ellastically shapeable and mass-adherent medium. The easiest way to study the sound field is by studying it's pressure field.
Every wave as nodes, sound waves too. The distance between nodes give us the pitch.
When sound is propagated in the resulting sound field appears a series of nodes. When we have two point sources one can make use of the superposition principle: If two or more traveling waves are moving through a medium, the resultant wave function at any point is the algebraic sum of the wave functions of the individual waves (due to the linearity of the wave equation). In the resulting sound field the nodes appear where the waves interfere in a destrutive way. The position of the nodes is dependant of frequency and phase. The fact that we have two point sources dont make the room nodes disappear, at minumun they can move (in the time domain or in the spectral domain).
In the case that the point sources are two subwooofer we can make a simplification in calculating the resulting sound field if we assume that the ratio between hearing position/wavelength <<1 ; the two source strengths can aproximately be added; at low frequencies the sources act as if they were put "in the same place" - thats why bass frequencies are not used to build the stereo image(lack of directionalaty).
Saying that one must go to the AudioAsylum can be useful (but not for homework), but using the information in a way that we dont understand is another thing. When giving an opinion we must try to be the most rigorous (Maybe my problem for being a scientist). |
"Maybe my problem for being a scientist." That sounds good to me. I didn't mean the "homework" remark to sound the way it did. Sorry if you were offended. I don't understand your scientific lingo, but I do know, however, what tingles these golden tympanics: they never steer me wrong. They know what they love; and two subwoofers are better than one; and 15inches is more preferred than 12, IMHO. I'm in sushi heaven living by the ocean. Uni!! Great for your sex and everything else...happy listening.. |
does anyone have any input on the Thiel 3.7?
how about a preamp or CDP? |
I have seen two pairs of proac 3.8 on sale on this site.
I have the responce twos and they make magic. Heard other proacs and they also sounded wonderful. You don't have to buy a brand new speaker if an older model just gets it right. |
Well, I got those babies hooked up. Weigh a ton, but look nice. My immediate impression, (of course at loud levels the bass is "simply marvelous.") is how much more texture there is in listening at moderate to very low levels. This is going to be fun. Bigger, in my case, is definately better. My wife thinks so too...lol :-) |
