what's my problem?

What's your price range?

1. Bass response is something that definitely improves with break-in. After a few weeks, you might
even feel like you have a new system.

2. No doubt -- separates will give you better sound.

3. Some speaker manufacturers do a great job with
speakers with fewer drivers, sacrificing the low end
for greater clarity in the mids and highs. As you go up
their line, they try to add bass and somtimes the result
isn't pretty. Then, as you go higher up the line, the bass
gets better. Bass is hard to do properly. Sometimes
no bass is better than bad bass.

4. IMO, Upgrading to a speaker that handles bass the way you like will yield greater dividends than wire and cable expenditures.

5. Just as an experiment, go listen to B & W speakers.
These are the perfect speakers to see what I'm talking about. You'll notice, as you go up the line, the major
improvement is in the nature of the bass. It gets tighter
and more detailed.

6. Why try to accomplish this with a wire when you
can purchase a speaker that can give you the capability of better sound. Start by upgrading your speakers
and then see if you still want expensive cables.

7. The chanes are: As you get further into this hobby,
you are becoming more demanding and your ear is
becoming more critical. So, you're demanding more
of your system. The sound you "imagine" is much
more detailed and sophisticated than it used to be.

Now, you must feed the monster.

Loose --

At your price point, I would take all of my expensive cable, power cord, and speaker wire budget and put it into my components. I would apportion my budget
so I was spending 50% of it on my speakers, 30%
on my pre/pro, 15% on my amplification and I would --
seriously -- use standard power cords, 12 AWG speaker wire you can get for around 50 cents a foot,
and interconnects from no BS sites like....

WWW.AVCables.Com.

And...

WWW.Parts Express.Com

To clean up your power for around $100, get one of
these Blue Circle Noise Hounds...

http://www.bluecircle.com/index.php?menu_id=54

This will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

I can't say I have listened to a lot of speakers in your
price range. I would definitely try to get stuff used --
you'll get more for your money. You'll also have to
do something retailers hate -- go to their establish-ments to audition their stuff, then buy it used on-line.

The thing I would NOT do at your price range is get
talked into putting a bunch of my component and
speaker money needlessly into cables and wires.

If you haven't already, try to find a place where you
can listen to Monitor Audio and Sonus Faber speakers.

Try to find speakers that sound great, but also are
really efficient, so you can get by with less amplification.

Like I say, I haven't spent a lot of time looking for
speakers in your price range and I never recommend
anything unless I have personally auditioned it myself,
but if I were on a really tight budget, I could live very comfortably with some of their speakers, especially
the Sonus Faber Grand Piano Homes. These retail
for $3,250, but I have seen them here for around
$2,200. I know that is above your price range, but
if you can push -- save the cable and wire money --
maybe you can get into a speaker like that. Try to
give it a listen if you can -- it beats a lot of speakers
I've heard going for twice the money.

One last note: I am not familiar with NHT speakers,
but I did a little research. Back in 1994, Stereophile
did a review of a little pair of NHT bookshelf speakers
and it was a drooling rave. After that, I don't find
Many reviews of NHT speakers by Stereophile, but
everything else NHT puts out seems to get reviewed
and the terminology and praise for all NHT speakers seems to be stolen directly from that original Stereophile review, as if Stereophile told everyone
what to think -- not just about that little bookshelf
speaker -- but about all of NHT's speakers.

Maybe it is just a coincidence, who knows.

But, if you haven't noticed already -- I'm a skeptic.

Rob

Having said all that --

Also -- give your stuff a chance to break in. I've
seen stuff sound great right out of the box and then
go into a rough period where the bass disappears,
the highs are edgy, the speakers lose their coherency
and then, after awhile, almost by the hour, the stuff
starts to sound better and better until it sounds great.

Don't underestimate the need for a break-in period.

Loose --

Excellent points. I think we are on the same page.

There are some pitfalls to the whole hifi audiofile
"thing" -- but then there is the music that is so intoxicating when you get your system together.

Which lasts for awhile.

Then, you you have to feed the monster. :-)

Rob

Marakanetz -- Excellent points.