What is wrong with my system?


Hi everyone -

I’m posting here because individually I think my components are all good, but together my system is not making music, rather is is making bright bass less noise. Honestly, I’m thinking it’s no one component, but the matching of components that is causing this issue. I would like to get everyone’s opinion as to what I’m hearing. My components are as follows:

B&W 802D (first generation diamond)
Audioquest bi-wired Indigo speaker cables

Classe CAM-200 monoblock amplifiers
Audioquest Water XLR interconnect

Bryston BP26 preamp
Audioquest Water XLR interconnect

Mark Levinson 5100 cd player (PCM slow minimum phase)

thanks in advance.

Mark Levinson 5100 CD player


onehorsepony

Showing 4 responses by millercarbon

No nothing is fighting each other. Unproductive way of viewing it. I cannot recommend what you are doing. Others I am sure can. Not me. Not at all.   

Listen- every single one of your components is responsible for and contributing to the sound you are trying to avoid. Every single one. If you try and patch this over with cables all you will wind up with is a system that still sounds bad, only less glaringly bad. But still bad.    

Only now if you keep going like this instead of being bad it will in the long run be even worse. In the beginning a couple months ago all you had to do was start methodically removing and replacing one at a time all the analytical ML, Classe, B&W etc. Each one of these replaced with something good- NOT trying to patch over the others, just better than what it replaced.   

The advice to try tubes is well-intentioned but misplaced. Try that and you will look for super warm tube gear trying to offset your super lean gear. Big mistake. 

Forget system matching, that is really the band-aid approach. "My system is too harsh, so I will match all my harsh components with syrup." Yes I know that is what everyone says. Well sorry but it is wrong.    

This is the way you build a system: forget what you have, focus on what you want. Each step will then be in the right direction. Otherwise you buy a bunch of bloated bass heavy wire trying to tame the other stuff. Eventually when you replace the other stuff you are forced to deal with the bloated bass heavy band-aids. Don't buy band-aids!   
Someone ran a test, forget who...concerning a coiled speaker cable...there was no discernible sound difference between a coiled or uncoiled speaker cable. My left speaker cable is coiled, my right is not. Sounds fine.
Sounds like that someone was you.   

If you have enough speaker cable to coil then trust me, it is not speaker cable. It is wire. Off a reel.  

If it sounds fine to you, wonderful. You can save a tremendous amount of money. We should all be so lucky. 

Sorry, I didn’t read any of the comments just the original post. Specifically:
I think my components are all good, but together my system is not making music, rather is is making bright bass less noise.

Then I look at the list of components and think, yeah, what else?

My guess is without reading the comments it is full of gosh you have good stuff. My impression looking at your component list is of course you have "bright bass less noise" - every single one of your components is why!

You have accidentally achieved a perfect storm of hi-fi sounding gear. The speakers might be okay, but even a really sweet little Raven Blackhawk tube amp cannot transform Mark Levinson into music. Some things simply cannot be done. A man’s got to know his limitations.

Seriously, Raven Blackhawk. Replace the B&W with something Tekton. Anything, frankly, especially if you want bass. I just heard Pendragon XL on Townshend Podiums with a 37wpc Bel Canto SET amp and it was to die for. You would NOT be saying "bass less noise" you would be saying "Oh My God I want THAT!" You simply do not need more than 20w, not with proper speakers anyway.

Wish I could say it is just one thing but sadly the truth is every single one of what you have is contributing in full to the "bass less noise" you are hearing. Cables too, I am sure. Townshend F1 will do you nicely. Then put everything on Pods.

The beauty of it is you can probably ditch your whole system, sell it all off, and buy newer better like I’m saying and have money left over. Then sit back and marvel at the incredible transformation. Come back then and I will explain how it is that a much cheaper system can be so much more musically satisfying. But by then you will already know.