Update: I sent an email to the manufacturer and he graciously responded with a copy of their setup instructions. I’m still tweaking the positioning but boom! Game changer. I was waaayy off on positioning. The 3A’s are still a little light in the bass or perhaps my ProAcs just do low end better? definitely different presentations between these two. Bigger soundstage & very detailed without being offensive. Very nice, although I don’t think these are going to give me what I was looking for at low volume. I’ll do more tweaking then I can’t wait to hear what they do when I kick on the REL.
Great speaker sounds terrible in my room?
So today I took a ride to demo a set of speakers that has had my interest for quite some time, the Ref 3A Royal Virtuoso. These things are completely overbuilt, top notch parts and built like tombstones, the cabinets are made of Corian and are completely inert. They sounded excellent during the demo. The owner was running them with a beautiful VAC preamp / Pass labs amp and a Moon Dac-streamer. They were on 24” stands and approximately 2ft off the back wall. They sounded superb as expected…I pack em up, take em home. I rig them up…my setup is near field with the speakers 10ft off the front wall and the speakers are 5ft away from my listening position. I fire them up and….shocker. They got nothing. They literally were lost with Zero bass response. I actually thought maybe something was connected wrong…I checked the connections ( more on that in a minute) all good. These are higher efficiency (91db) than my ProAc Response D2’s (88db) yet the Ref 3A’s sounded much lower at my usual listening level. I’m still scratching my head over how this speaker is unable to kick ass. I have decent gear with plenty of firepower (ARC D400MKII amp, Levinson 380s Pre, Denafrips Terminator Dac, Aurender N100SC streamer. I’ve had Sonus Farber Concertino’s, Vienna Acoustics Haydn, KEF 150’s and my ProAcs all set up in the same manner and they all were excellent performers. The one thing that I’m wondering about is the Binding post on the Ref 3A…it uses the Cardas screw down clamp type post that only accepts spades or bare wire. my cables are banana terminated and I was using cheapo adapters. Could this all could be a connection related issue or just a speaker/room mismatch?
Thoughts / comments are much appreciated
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@bjesien I have them on sand filled steel monolith stands spiked into my carpet…suckers are HEAVY and I use Herbies square dots between the plates and speakers. |
I don’t have a dedicated listening room. I’m in a studio apartment and my listening area is basically my living area / kitchen so I have to keep things aesthetically pleasing and utilitarian as opposed to looking like a hi-fi shop. That’s just not my style. That being said, My floor is concrete and granite with a carpet covering the listening area. Spikes are purely for keeping the stands secured as I heard no difference between the spikes and the footers. I prefer Herbies fat dots under the speakers as they are nicer don’t ruin the finish of the speakers like blue-tac or sorbothane. As hard as I’ve tried, I can’t detect the micro nuances of coupling material, outlet covers, ethernet switches and cable lifters although I’ve kept a few tweaks that I thought made sense and were well made (eg: damping plates). Also, The REL is raised off the floor on a 1.5in granite slab. I had ridiculous room boom with the sub on the floor and putting it on the slab and taking it out of the corner solved the problem perfectly.
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Good to hear you did decouple. The way they are made you did the best thing you could to actually make a music sub. REL is old tech with great paint. I've fixed quite a few VMPS and REL subs for music.. Boom Boom is easy. Audiophile is a little tougher.. I secure a butt plate and add, springs, pods or air ride. I've used all with great success. Air bags decouple the most complete, they can be a PITA if not thought out.. I used a 10 and 15" bicycle tire tube under 2 400lb columns. worked perfect for 15 years.. You could tell when they needed air. Once a year two pumps each. Nobound with ear plugs stuffed in the springs does ok.... :-) Get the black ones, they don't stand out like a sore thumb.. I'm only in to ugly women, my gear has to look really good. Easier maintenance for both to tell the truth. :-) Regards |
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