Aleph 5 + Dunlavy 4

The Aleph amps are not bass champs whereas Krell is. And the Dunlavy may have less *apparent * bass than your PSBs.

I also think you need more power than the Aleph 5 for your speakers, though you can certainly live with it for a while. It should be superb in many respects.

I can see why you would think that you "lost" bass. In effect, you did. Having said that, "quantity" does not always equal "quality".

Pass amps are NOT "bass monsters", especially the Aleph series.

Dunlavy's are known for having very quick and tight bass, not the bloated thud that most vented designs offer.

As such, you went from an amp that is known for having gobs of power / current with phenomenal bottom end driving speakers that are slow, thick and muddy to an amp that is somewhat lean and speakers that are much more defined and quicker. Obviously, that is quite a big change.

I would suggest working with speaker placement and give yourself a chance to get used to the new system. I'm not suggesting that you'll like this set-up better simply by getting used to it, but it IS a VERY different system.

So that we may be able to offer more informed opinions as to what might help you out:

1) what are you running for speaker cables ?

2) how big is the room that the Dunlavy's are in ?

3) how far apart are the Dunlavy's from each other, the side walls and the front wall ?

The more info that you can give us, the more likely the comments are to be somewhat helpful and accurate. Sean
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Thanks for the responses !

Drubin, I guess what I want to know is if A/D combo is what it should be or a little bit bass-shy, especially both KSA and PSB are known for their bass performance or too exagerated. In fact I'm not sure if I need more power. Right now my preamp points to 10-11 o'clock position in pretty loud listening leve while the previous Aleph owner pointed to 3 o'clock driving Maggies 3.6.

Sean, yes it is big change (and improvement). In fact, I like them very much. I just want to know if the bass of my previous system is too exagerated (or slow and muddy) or the current one is just right (quick and tight). Thanks for your opinion !

My cable is Audioquest midnight-2 driving by ARC LS-3B, AA DTI-PRO32, DDE V3.0 and Maratz CD-63. The roomm is about 16Wx24Lx17H. The speakers are along the short wall (not as suggested, I know) but 10.5' apart. 2.5' from the side wall, 7' form the back wall without toe-in. There is no front wall since it faces a open dinette/kitchen (15'wx22'L). The listening position iss about 11' from the center of the speakes. Is it good or any improvemnt can be made except "along the longwall" ? Thanks !

Cdma: Due to the wide horizontal ( but limited vertical ) dispersion of the mirror imaged design that the Dunlavy's use, you'll probably need to pay close attention to the primary points of reflection on the side walls AND toe the speakers in. This type of design typically works best with no toe-in, but your installation somewhat forces you to do so.

As a side note, you might be running into impedance related problems with the ARC preamp and the Aleph amp. This is discussed in another current thread and the Aleph's are specifically mentioned in terms of having problems with tube and / or passive based preamps ( for lack of a more universal term ). This is something that you might want to check into also as it could be affecting what you are hearing / the synergy between components.

Other than that, my thoughts are that your source is now the weak spot within your system in terms of electronics. I know that you probably just dumped a ton of cash on this stuff, but i can see some further expenditures coming up in the near future for you : ) Sean
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Thanks again !
I did see Drubin's comment on impedance match !
I got a ratio of 46 = 23k/0.5k, how is it ? Maybe this number accounts for a little bit bass shy. AI L-1 or Aleph P of my once candidate won't improve this ratio. I did do something on the primary points of my back and side walls, the reflection is kinda under the controll and no toe-in is applied.

About my source, do you mean cd-63 or cd-63 plus AA gears ?
Do you think a Perpetual p3a replaceing DDE with some upsampling trick will help ?