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My stereo isn't doing it for me. Need advice

I have been trying to get a great sounding room for a while now and it still doesn't sound great or even good. I have a Prinaluna Dialogue 5 power amp and a Primaluna Prologue preamp. All with stock tubes so far. A Marantz c6005 CD player. Morrow mc3 interconnects and Kimber 8tc speaker cable. My speakers are Dynaudio x12's which sound the best in my room. I also have Dynaudio x32 speakers and a pair of KEF LS50 speakers. Also a REL T-5 subwoofer. My room is my office and is 9 x 11 with 8 Foot ceilings. Some acoustic stuff sounds great but the louder stuff not so much. I find I listen to music that sounds good rather than music I want to hear. Any suggestions on what I can change. I also bought a Class D Audio 200 watt per channel amplifier that makes everything sound even worse.
128x128dylanfan
rar1's avatar
rar1
1,771 posts
 
Two things come to mind:

1. How are your speakers set up? Are the speakers on stands, close to the wall, out in the room, etc. Have you tried moving them around?

2. The CD6005 is not on par with your amplification ... your have $4500 in amplification paired with a $500 cd player. I would be thinking about seriously upgrading the CD player. For example, I have a Prima Luna Prologue 5 power amp (list 2k) paired with a Musical Fidelity CD PRE 24 (list 3k). They play nice together.

Question - what is not sounding right? Is it certain types of music?

Rich
lindisfarne
511 posts
 
You have beautiful equipment that, when set up properly, should sound
amazing. While the CD player is not on par with the balance of your system, I do
not think that is the root problem and I am a guy who believes the theory that
"source is king". The Marantz CD player you use is quite nice and, if
anything, it will only be guilty of rounding the rough edges of bad CD sound. I
think inserting a higher resolution player is not what will turn your experience
around.

You are not "connecting" with your system.

The proof that your system is amiss is evinced by the fact that you are turning to
music which is well-recorded rather than to music you like. That is a very bad
sign.

Your room is small but it's the exact same dimensions as mine and I get great
sound (sometimes). Explore better racks and/or speaker stands. Both are hugely
important. For equipment racks, look into Quadraspire and for speaker stands
look into Sound Anchors. I think both will pay dividends.

By the way, I see you like Bob Dylan. Bob's on Letterman show tonight as final
music guest.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
Take music that you like to listen to and go out and demo equipment until you find something that will make you happy. In the mean time, don't spend another dime on your system.
wim1983's avatar
wim1983
221 posts
 
I'm very interested about your problems. Few questions:

1. First when you said it sound not ok for you, which sound property you mean? High/mid/bass? Sound stage? Transparency? Dynamic and distortions?

2. If possible you can briefly describe musical genre that you are listening to

3. What's the music that sound good? What's the music you want to hear?

4. Between, I got the Class D Audio power amp too

5. Looking at your setup, subwoofer matching here could be the problem? Maybe, bass overemphasize than high/mid frequency?
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